How long did the Mareeba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 November 2024 and 9 November 2024: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,471 hectares (274.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mareeba (27,679 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class Extreme.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Australia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

AU · Australia · 2024-11-03 → 2024-11-09

Mareeba fire, 3 November 2024 Mareeba

Out · last detection 10 Nov 2024, 16:31 UTC

The fire started on 3 November 2024 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,471 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 195th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 62 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 27,471ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 3 Nov 2024 – 9 Nov 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 3 Nov; 2024
Heat detections: 216; in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start: 63; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 1.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Nov 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Nov9 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

78910

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

40°high

42km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 14 Nov.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,025 ha in 2016, 1,720 ha in 2017, 5,907 ha in 2019, 11,239 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,949 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mareeba where it started

27,679 ha reached on 7 Nov

0.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
27 Oct	39.6 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
28 Oct	39.8 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
29 Oct	39.3 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
30 Oct	37.7 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.8 mm	Very high 42
31 Oct	37.5 °C	14 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
1 Nov	33.9 °C	37 %	28 km/h	2.5 mm	Moderate 16
2 Nov	37.9 °C	22 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 39
3 Nov	39.3 °C	14 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
4 Nov	39.5 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
5 Nov	40.0 °C	10 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
6 Nov	39.2 °C	13 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
7 Nov	39.4 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
8 Nov	39.3 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
9 Nov	39.7 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
10 Nov after	39.8 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
11 Nov after	39.9 °C	18 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
12 Nov after	39.5 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
13 Nov after	39.3 °C	31 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 49
14 Nov after	36.0 °C	38 %	29 km/h	2.5 mm	Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 27 Oct 2024

After · 16 Nov 2024

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 189 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 91: 6.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak189 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM10272 µg/m³

Optical depth1.51

WHO 15

123456789101112

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 216Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mareeba fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 November 2024 and 9 November 2024: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,471 hectares (274.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mareeba (27,679 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Australia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 000

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 000.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned