Mareeba fire, 18 May 2026 Mareeba
The fire started on 18 May 2026 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,781 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 567th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 244 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
The power measured by the satellite is low (27.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 12,781ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 18 May 2026 – 29 May 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 18 May
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 460
- in a single hotspot: 28 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 106 ha in 2016, 246 ha in 2017, 1,167 ha in 2018, 510 ha in 2020, 557 ha in 2021, 11,135 ha in 2022, 317 ha in 2023, 33 ha in 2024, 310 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,012 ha that had burned before.
- 11,135 ha Mareeba fire, August 2022 12,164 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,167 ha Mareeba fire, June 2018 9,888 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 557 ha Mareeba fire, November 2021 6,172 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 237 ha Mareeba fire, November 2017 6,212 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 123 ha Mareeba fire, October 2025 60,564 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 33 ha Mareeba fire, June 2024 8,631 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mareeba where it started12,858 ha reached on 18 May0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 May | 28.7 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 19 May | 28.6 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 20 May | 27.0 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 May | 26.1 °C | 19 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 May | 24.8 °C | 44 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 23 May | 25.8 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 24 May | 26.8 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 25 May | 26.5 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 May | 25.9 °C | 39 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 27 May | 27.5 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 May | 26.0 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 May | 26.8 °C | 22 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 May after | 26.3 °C | 22 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 May after | 27.5 °C | 18 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Jun after | 26.8 °C | 25 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Jun after | 26.2 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Jun after | 27.6 °C | 31 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Jun after | 26.6 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Jun after | 26.4 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Jun after | 24.5 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Jun after | 23.6 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Jun after | 23.4 °C | 52 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 19 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 460Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,210 haMareeba12 November 2016 · 29 days · 16 km away
- 60,564 haMareeba15 October 2025 · 14 days · 19 km away
- 25,499 haMareebaSeptember 2021 · 20 days · 22 km away
- 23,133 haMareeba15 December 2019 · 11 days · 31 km away
- 25,367 haMareeba15 October 2025 · 10 days · 32 km away
- 36,633 haMareeba4 June 2024 · 21 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mareeba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 May 2026 and 29 May 2026: 12 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 12,781 hectares (127.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mareeba (12,858 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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
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.
Report an error
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.