How long did the Mareeba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2026 and 10 September 2026: 13 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 13,207 hectares (132.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (8,820 ha, 0.2 %); Cook (4,482 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · 2026-08-29 → 2026-09-10

Mareeba fire, August 2026 Mareeba, Cook

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2026, 16:18 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,207 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 547th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 233 in Australia in 2026, of 859.

Burnt area: 13,207ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 29 Aug 2026 – 10 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 29 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 495; in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3031123456789

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

51km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,128 ha in 2017, 3,727 ha in 2018, 2,330 ha in 2019, 111 ha in 2020, 226 ha in 2021, 2,900 ha in 2022, 60 ha in 2024, 131 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,612 ha that had burned before.

3,265 ha Mareeba fire, October 2018 13,564 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mareeba where it started

8,820 ha reached on 30 Aug

0.2 %
Cook

4,482 ha reached on 30 Aug

0.0 %

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	Danger (FWI)
29 Aug	28.2 °C	36 %	48 km/h	Very high 42
30 Aug	27.3 °C	37 %	51 km/h	Very high 42
31 Aug	27.6 °C	33 %	46 km/h	Very high 40
1 Sept	27.0 °C	42 %	44 km/h	High 36
2 Sept	28.8 °C	34 %	38 km/h	High 35
3 Sept	29.7 °C	29 %	31 km/h	High 35
4 Sept	29.5 °C	36 %	20 km/h	High 30
5 Sept	30.1 °C	30 %	28 km/h	High 31
6 Sept	29.5 °C	33 %	24 km/h	High 32
7 Sept	30.1 °C	30 %	32 km/h	High 36
8 Sept	33.5 °C	19 %	40 km/h	Extreme 50
9 Sept	31.2 °C	31 %	26 km/h	Very high 39
10 Sept	30.0 °C	36 %	51 km/h	Very high 47
11 Sept after	28.0 °C	38 %	61 km/h	Very high 48
12 Sept after	29.4 °C	35 %	44 km/h	Very high 40
13 Sept after	29.0 °C	33 %	49 km/h	Very high 43
14 Sept after	29.8 °C	34 %	47 km/h	Very high 41
15 Sept after	29.5 °C	35 %	45 km/h	Very high 41
16 Sept after	30.8 °C	12 %	45 km/h	Extreme 56
17 Sept after	30.0 °C	30 %	55 km/h	Extreme 55
18 Sept after	27.7 °C	36 %	67 km/h	Extreme 52
19 Sept after	28.4 °C	34 %	44 km/h	Very high 41
20 Sept after	29.9 °C	32 %	27 km/h	High 34

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Aug 2026

After · 17 Sept 2026

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 6 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1039 µg/m³

Optical depth0.37

WHO 15

272829303112345678910111213

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 · 495Every 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 29 August 2026 and 10 September 2026: 13 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 13,207 hectares (132.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (8,820 ha, 0.2 %); Cook (4,482 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 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