How long did the Mid-Coast fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 October 2019 to 10 January 2020 (86 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2019 to 10 January 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 204,662 hectares (2,046.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mid-Coast (154,496 ha, 15 %); Walcha (49,448 ha, 7.9 %); Port Macquarie-Hastings (3,778 ha, 1.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 41.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 88 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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 · 17 Oct 2019 – 10 Jan 2020

Mid-Coast fire, October 2019 Mid-Coast, Walcha, Port Macquarie-Hastings

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2020, 15:07 UTC

The fire started on 17 October 2019 in Mid-Coast, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 86 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 204,662 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 5th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 7 in Australia in 2019, of 288.

Use this data

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tamworth · 2018 Armidale · 2019 Mid-Coast · 2017

Use this data

Fire page data · version 2026-11-15

matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel

When copying, the sentence is

Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.

Burned area

satellite only

204,662ha

Union of 4 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus)
Date: 17 Oct 2019 – 10 Jan 2020

+ cross-check

No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.

in my selection

Duration by satellite

satellite only

86days

17 Oct 2019 to 10 Jan 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date: last detection: 10 Jan 2020, 15:07 UTC

+ cross-check

Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

in my selection

Start

satellite only

17 Oct 2019

First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date: 17 Oct 2019

+ cross-check

No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.

in my selection

Hotspots

satellite only

34,124

VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 752 MW.

Source: NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
Date: 17 Oct 2019 – 10 Jan 2020

+ cross-check

There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.

in my selection

The worst day

satellite only

32,366MW

Total radiative power on 8 November 2019; hotspots that day: 1,514.

Source: NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
Date: 8 Nov 2019

+ cross-check

Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.

in my selection

Danger at the start

model

30.2FWI · high

Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 4.

Source: WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
Date: 17 Oct 2019, local noon
Model: ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com

+ cross-check

This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings

in my selection

Weather during the fire

model

41.0°C · 15% RH

High of 41.0 °C and minimum humidity of 15% on 4 January 2020; gusts of 88 km/h on 2 December 2019.

Source: weather model at the fire’s grid cell
Date: 17 Oct 2019 – 10 Jan 2020
Model: ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com

+ cross-check

These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.

in my selection

Versioned permanent link

https://worldfires.org/en/fire/mid-coast-2019-10?v=2026-11-15

A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.

Citation

A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives

In another language

Español Português Français Italiano Ελληνικά Türkçe Română Hrvatski Български Українська Deutsch Русский Bahasa Indonesia Polski Nederlands 中文日本語 ไทย עברית العربية

CSV for this fire mid-coast-2019-10.csv · daily, no individual hotspots

fecha	focos_viirs	frp_mw	tmax_c	tmin_c	hr_min_pct	viento_max_kmh	racha_max_kmh	precip_mm	fwi	clase_fwi	dentro_del_incendio
2019-10-17	4	3	30.3	15.2	19	25.8	73.8	0	30.2	alto	1
2019-10-18	10	35	25.1	6.5	15	10.9	34.9	0	19.8	moderado	1
2019-10-19	25	88	26.7	4.9	12	15	39.2	0	25.9	alto	1
2019-10-20	18	57	20.9	9.3	30	12.9	32	0	21.6	alto	1
2019-10-21	9	25	21.7	5.6	33	10.6	28.8	0	18.2	moderado	1
2019-10-22	21	65	25.3	5.1	28	10.7	31.3	0	20.6	moderado	1
2019-10-23	24	90	28	7.3	24	11.5	34.2	0	20.3	moderado	1
2019-10-24	7	18	28.3	11.1	26	11.7	29.5	0.2	21.7	alto	1
2019-10-25	0	0	31.7	10.4	17	13	35.6	0	32.2	alto	1
2019-10-26	65	386	30.9	16.3	21	24.2	80.6	0	51.9	extremo	1
2019-10-27	91	434	26.1	9.6	16	17.6	49.3	0	25.5	alto	1
2019-10-28	127	281	21.1	6.4	50	14.1	38.9	0.9	17.7	moderado	1
2019-10-29	85	291	26.4	9	32	15.3	40.7	0	19	moderado	1
2019-10-30	16	28	27.3	10.9	28	9	20.5	0	22.4	alto	1
2019-10-31	17	25	28.6	11.5	26	11.9	36	0.1	28	alto	1
2019-11-01	47	150	28.5	10.7	27	16.9	46.4	0	30.2	alto	1
2019-11-02	67	185	28.4	12.2	29	17.3	46.8	0	32.5	alto	1
2019-11-03	1	7	30.8	13.7	28	14.1	32	3.4	32.5	alto	1
2019-11-04	3	13	25.2	14.9	34	10.5	40.3	7.1	3.6	muy_bajo	1
2019-11-05	0	0	18.7	9.7	39	19.1	59	3.2	10.3	bajo	1
2019-11-06	17	30	27.3	5.7	13	10.8	36.7	0	15.8	moderado	1
2019-11-07	159	827	32.1	12.3	10	23.1	61.6	0	62.5	extremo	1
2019-11-08	1,514	32,366	29.6	10.4	11	21.3	55.1	0	55.8	extremo	1
2019-11-09	1,361	8,620	19.6	10.6	18	17.7	49.7	0	47.4	muy_alto	1
2019-11-10	1,214	7,367	24.1	8.8	23	17.4	48.2	0	38.2	muy_alto	1
2019-11-11	356	972	27	7.3	25	12.3	29.5	0	27.6	alto	1
2019-11-12	2,104	25,273	32.8	8.9	11	19.8	52.2	0	62	extremo	1
2019-11-13	2,524	14,621	24.9	10.6	11	11.8	42.5	0	45.6	muy_alto	1
2019-11-14	917	4,301	26.3	5.9	19	10.1	28.8	0	36.5	alto	1
2019-11-15	2,297	30,141	30	7.9	13	15.9	43.9	0	52.4	extremo	1
2019-11-16	1,146	4,744	29.1	11.5	16	19.5	54.4	0	36	alto	1
2019-11-17	406	2,318	26.8	12.1	23	18.7	54.4	0.4	51.2	extremo	1
2019-11-18	1,338	5,889	28	11.5	24	12.2	27.7	0	30.6	alto	1
2019-11-19	1,473	14,636	32.4	9.8	11	12.9	28.4	0	46	muy_alto	1
2019-11-20	687	5,908	27	14.9	39	12.7	35.6	0	36.3	alto	1
2019-11-21	507	2,340	34.1	15.3	26	13.4	37.1	0	31.2	alto	1
2019-11-22	420	3,145	34.8	18.5	22	14.5	45	0	41.4	muy_alto	1
2019-11-23	1	1	27.2	17.9	49	10.1	37.8	4.3	29.9	alto	1
2019-11-24	0	0	19.5	16.6	90	10.3	24.5	14.5	0	muy_bajo	1
2019-11-25	5	4	27.7	14.9	42	9.4	33.1	9.3	2.3	muy_bajo	1
2019-11-26	27	138	32.1	13	26	20.1	60.1	0.5	13.8	moderado	1
2019-11-27	132	656	25.6	9.4	26	16.2	45	0	16	moderado	1
2019-11-28	131	1,050	29.5	8.7	32	16.6	45.4	0	19.1	moderado	1
2019-11-29	220	509	30.7	17.3	30	14.5	53.6	0	18.3	moderado	1
2019-11-30	0	0	29.4	16.9	33	20.4	49.3	0.6	32.4	alto	1
2019-12-01	18	38	25.3	15.9	34	18.5	51.8	2	11	bajo	1
2019-12-02	211	504	21.9	13.3	33	27.3	87.8	0.2	21.2	moderado	1
2019-12-03	566	4,191	26.9	9.3	20	16.3	44.6	0	31.6	alto	1
2019-12-04	1,177	14,018	28.7	9.7	14	15.9	41.8	0	42.4	muy_alto	1
2019-12-05	1,196	16,397	30.9	9.2	15	15.5	41	0	37.7	alto	1
2019-12-06	1,537	20,294	32.1	13.2	16	17.3	53.3	0	51.3	extremo	1
2019-12-07	968	5,637	30.5	12.3	20	14.5	42.5	0	32.7	alto	1
2019-12-08	154	1,230	28.8	13.2	36	17.6	47.9	0.1	30.3	alto	1
2019-12-09	436	1,904	31	15.8	38	17	46.8	0	27.8	alto	1
2019-12-10	508	5,276	37.3	16.6	19	14.5	36.7	0	42	muy_alto	1
2019-12-11	28	291	27.8	17.2	50	12.4	37.1	0.1	28.3	alto	1
2019-12-12	1	4	24	15.7	59	12.7	34.2	0.4	18.7	moderado	1
2019-12-13	0	0	19.8	15.5	71	10.9	27.4	2.7	4	muy_bajo	1
2019-12-14	53	719	31.2	15	28	15.2	42.5	0	16.7	moderado	1
2019-12-15	364	2,119	31.9	17.3	28	11.4	31.3	0	25.7	alto	1
2019-12-16	251	4,253	27	14.5	28	17.3	48.2	0	38.3	muy_alto	1
2019-12-17	669	3,996	26.1	11.4	37	12.2	35.3	0	30.6	alto	1
2019-12-18	833	4,013	29.6	9	27	13.1	35.6	0	32.3	alto	1
2019-12-19	679	6,847	37.8	13.4	17	10.7	25.2	0	41.1	muy_alto	1
2019-12-20	550	2,633	30.7	17.2	37	11.4	36.7	0	38.9	muy_alto	1
2019-12-21	456	4,475	38.8	15.8	21	10.5	27.7	0	41.9	muy_alto	1
2019-12-22	0	0	23.7	16.1	62	13.3	40.7	2.3	9.3	bajo	1
2019-12-23	0	0	22.4	15	66	9.5	34.9	0.9	7.2	bajo	1
2019-12-24	4	34	29	18.1	46	11.5	42.5	3.5	24	alto	1
2019-12-25	1	1	23.2	18.2	67	13.3	37.1	2.2	3.5	muy_bajo	1
2019-12-26	97	407	29	16.2	33	12.6	35.6	0	16.9	moderado	1
2019-12-27	199	1,422	29.5	12.5	29	14.5	40.7	0	30.4	alto	1
2019-12-28	467	4,983	32.5	11.2	20	12.9	35.6	0	39.1	muy_alto	1
2019-12-29	630	11,555	35	14	18	13.5	37.1	0	39.3	muy_alto	1
2019-12-30	590	5,559	36.2	14.8	17	15.9	46.8	0	45.5	muy_alto	1
2019-12-31	670	5,111	38.1	16.5	13	17	46.8	0	42.3	muy_alto	1
2020-01-01	207	1,259	31.4	18.4	40	12.8	35.3	0	37.8	alto	1
2020-01-02	58	313	29.6	18.8	49	9.8	28.1	0.5	25.8	alto	1
2020-01-03	197	690	34	18.6	34	13.5	36	0	27.1	alto	1
2020-01-04	377	2,817	41	19.5	15	15.3	35.6	0	45.4	muy_alto	1
2020-01-05	191	2,919	31.8	18.2	38	16	43.9	1	45.5	muy_alto	1
2020-01-06	22	142	26.2	16.8	56	13	37.1	3	4.6	muy_bajo	1
2020-01-07	52	107	31.6	18.7	38	8.1	29.9	0.4	17.3	moderado	1
2020-01-08	33	260	32.2	18.1	39	11.6	32.4	1.4	25.3	alto	1
2020-01-09	0	0	24.2	18.7	73	11.8	35.3	4.9	4.2	muy_bajo	1
2020-01-10	81	336	36.2	18.3	25	9.7	34.2	0	7	bajo	1
2020-01-11	0	0	25.8	16.7	45	15.9	46.1	1.3	15.8	moderado	0

It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.

Live widget for your story

It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.

Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology

Burnt area: 204,662ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 86days; 17 Oct 2019 – 10 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit: 3; local government areas
Started on: 17 Oct; 2019
Heat detections: 34,124; in a single hotspot: 752 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 3.9GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Oct10 Jan

Play back 10 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

17 Oct 8 Nov 20 Nov 8 Dec 27 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

41°high

88km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 11 Jan.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,370 ha in 2016, 9,881 ha in 2017, 3,187 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 28,988 ha that had burned before.

2,850 ha Mid-Coast fire, February 2017 7,727 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.3 times the area of London (2,047 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Mid-Coast where it started

154,496 ha

15 %
Walcha

49,448 ha

7.9 %
Port Macquarie-Hastings

3,778 ha

1.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)

Started with Strong wind: 39 % of the area in Australia

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
17 Oct	30.3 °C	19 %	74 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Oct	25.1 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
19 Oct	26.7 °C	12 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Oct	20.9 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
21 Oct	21.7 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
22 Oct	25.3 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
23 Oct	28.0 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
24 Oct	28.3 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	High 22
25 Oct	31.7 °C	17 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
26 Oct	30.9 °C	21 %	81 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
27 Oct	26.1 °C	16 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
28 Oct	21.1 °C	50 %	39 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 18
29 Oct	26.4 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
30 Oct	27.3 °C	28 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
31 Oct	28.6 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
1 Nov	28.5 °C	27 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
2 Nov	28.4 °C	29 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
3 Nov	30.8 °C	28 %	32 km/h	3.4 mm	High 32
4 Nov	25.2 °C	34 %	40 km/h	7.1 mm	Very low 4
5 Nov	18.7 °C	39 %	59 km/h	3.2 mm	Low 10
6 Nov	27.3 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
7 Nov	32.1 °C	10 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
8 Nov	29.6 °C	11 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
9 Nov	19.6 °C	18 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
10 Nov	24.1 °C	23 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
11 Nov	27.0 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Nov	32.8 °C	11 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
13 Nov	24.9 °C	11 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
14 Nov	26.3 °C	19 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Nov	30.0 °C	13 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
16 Nov	29.1 °C	16 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Nov	26.8 °C	23 %	54 km/h	0.4 mm	Extreme 51
18 Nov	28.0 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Nov	32.4 °C	11 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Nov	27.0 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
21 Nov	34.1 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Nov	34.8 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Nov	27.2 °C	49 %	38 km/h	4.3 mm	High 30
24 Nov	19.5 °C	90 %	24 km/h	14.5 mm	Very low 0
25 Nov	27.7 °C	42 %	33 km/h	9.3 mm	Very low 2
26 Nov	32.1 °C	26 %	60 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 14
27 Nov	25.6 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
28 Nov	29.5 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
29 Nov	30.7 °C	30 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
30 Nov	29.4 °C	33 %	49 km/h	0.6 mm	High 32
1 Dec	25.3 °C	34 %	52 km/h	2.0 mm	Low 11
2 Dec	21.9 °C	33 %	88 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 21
3 Dec	26.9 °C	20 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Dec	28.7 °C	14 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
5 Dec	30.9 °C	15 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
6 Dec	32.1 °C	16 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
7 Dec	30.5 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Dec	28.8 °C	36 %	48 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
9 Dec	31.0 °C	38 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
10 Dec	37.3 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Dec	27.8 °C	50 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
12 Dec	24.0 °C	59 %	34 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 19
13 Dec	19.8 °C	71 %	27 km/h	2.7 mm	Very low 4
14 Dec	31.2 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
15 Dec	31.9 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Dec	27.0 °C	28 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
17 Dec	26.1 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
18 Dec	29.6 °C	27 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 Dec	37.8 °C	17 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
20 Dec	30.7 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Dec	38.8 °C	21 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
22 Dec	23.7 °C	62 %	41 km/h	2.3 mm	Low 9
23 Dec	22.4 °C	66 %	35 km/h	0.9 mm	Low 7
24 Dec	29.0 °C	46 %	42 km/h	3.5 mm	High 24
25 Dec	23.2 °C	67 %	37 km/h	2.2 mm	Very low 4
26 Dec	29.0 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
27 Dec	29.5 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 Dec	32.5 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
29 Dec	35.0 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
30 Dec	36.2 °C	17 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
31 Dec	38.1 °C	13 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Jan	31.4 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
2 Jan	29.6 °C	49 %	28 km/h	0.5 mm	High 26
3 Jan	34.0 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Jan	41.0 °C	15 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
5 Jan	31.8 °C	38 %	44 km/h	1.0 mm	Very high 46
6 Jan	26.2 °C	56 %	37 km/h	3.0 mm	Very low 5
7 Jan	31.6 °C	38 %	30 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 17
8 Jan	32.2 °C	39 %	32 km/h	1.4 mm	High 25
9 Jan	24.2 °C	73 %	35 km/h	4.9 mm	Very low 4
10 Jan	36.2 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
11 Jan after	25.8 °C	45 %	46 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 16

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 30.2, a minimum humidity of 19% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 6.

FWI at the start 30.2

Minimum humidity 19 %

Days without rain 4

this fire chosen twins rest of the area

How alike they must beTwins: 6

Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Same scale

Tamworth fire, January 2018

16,073 ha 7 days FWI 31.0 Min. humidity 19 % 190 km away, in 2018

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 16.3 mm on 25 Jan.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 6. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.3 mmfirst rain

11 Janthe day after it ended

88km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 10 Jan, and on 11 Jan 1.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Oct 2019

After · 17 Jan 2020

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.

Detections table · 34,124Every 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

7,727 haMid-CoastFebruary 2017 · 16 days · 35 km away

All fires in Australia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mid-Coast fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 October 2019 to 10 January 2020 (86 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2019 to 10 January 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 204,662 hectares (2,046.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mid-Coast (154,496 ha, 15 %); Walcha (49,448 ha, 7.9 %); Port Macquarie-Hastings (3,778 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 41.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 88 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

15 November 2026 Name: Walcha → Mid-Coast.
26 October 2026 Start date: 18 October 2019 → 17 October 2019.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 October 2019 to 10 January 2020. 34,124 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.

Use this data

Burned area

Duration by satellite

Start

Hotspots

The worst day

Danger at the start

Weather during the fire

Area logged each night

Versioned permanent link

Citation

A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives

CSV for this fire mid-coast-2019-10.csv · daily, no individual hotspots

Live widget for your story

Where it burned

How it evolved, day by day

The weather it burned in

This area had burned before

How big is it?

What happened to each town

The weather day by day

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

Outlines of the closest twins

What happened to them

How it ended

How a twin is chosen

Before and after, from space

Other fires nearby

Frequently asked questions

Where to verify it

Does something look wrong on this page?

Where this data comes from