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Mount Isa fire, April 2016 Mount Isa, Burke

Out · last detection 14 Apr 2016, 16:58 UTC

The fire started on 9 April 2016 in Mount Isa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,589 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 801th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 177 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
9,589ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
9 Apr 2016 – 15 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
9 Apr
2016
Heat detections
205
in a single hotspot: 116 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Apr15 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
48km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mount Isa where it started
    9,542 ha reached on 9 Apr
    0.2 %
  2. Burke
    14 ha
    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 Rain Danger (FWI)
9 Apr 37.2 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Apr 36.6 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Apr 37.1 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Apr 36.7 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Apr 35.8 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Apr 35.4 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Apr 34.6 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Apr after 34.5 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
17 Apr after 35.2 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Apr after 35.8 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Apr after 36.2 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Apr after 35.9 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Apr after 36.3 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
22 Apr after 36.3 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
23 Apr after 36.1 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
24 Apr after 34.2 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
25 Apr after 34.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Apr 2016
After · 22 Apr 2016

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 · 205Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mount Isa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 April 2016 and 15 April 2016: 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 9,589 hectares (95.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mount Isa (9,542 ha, 0.2 %); Burke (14 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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

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?

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.