How long did the Mareeba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 November 2024 and 13 November 2024: 5 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 12,287 hectares (122.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mareeba (12,317 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.

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 · 2024-11-09 → 2024-11-13

Mareeba fire, 9 November 2024 Mareeba

Out · last detection 13 Nov 2024, 15:34 UTC

The fire started on 9 November 2024 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,287 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 595th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 197 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 12,287ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 5days; 9 Nov 2024 – 13 Nov 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 9 Nov; 2024
Heat detections: 580; in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start: 45; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 4.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Nov 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Nov13 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

910111213

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

47km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.0 mm on 21 Nov.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,138 ha in 2017, 377 ha in 2018, 5,515 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,955 ha that had burned before.

4,644 ha Mareeba fire, August 2023 31,215 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mareeba where it started

12,317 ha reached on 7 Nov

0.2 %

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)
7 Nov	36.0 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
8 Nov	36.9 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
9 Nov	37.8 °C	20 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
10 Nov	35.1 °C	31 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
11 Nov	34.9 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Nov	36.5 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
13 Nov	36.9 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
14 Nov after	36.3 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Nov after	37.0 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Nov after	35.6 °C	34 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
17 Nov after	35.1 °C	33 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
18 Nov after	35.2 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Nov after	34.7 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
20 Nov after	34.6 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 39
21 Nov after	33.9 °C	41 %	37 km/h	5.0 mm	Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Nov 2024

After · 20 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 13 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1029 µg/m³

Optical depth0.51

WHO 15

78910111213141516

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 · 580Every 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 9 November 2024 and 13 November 2024: 5 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 12,287 hectares (122.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mareeba (12,317 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
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 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