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Mount Isa fire, August 2019 Mount Isa

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2019, 04:00 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2019 in Mount Isa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,977 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1407th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 648 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
5,977ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
15 Aug 2019 – 24 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Aug
2019
Heat detections
247
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
61km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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
    5,988 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.1 %

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)
15 Aug 29.8 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Aug 31.1 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug 32.9 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Aug 33.0 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
19 Aug 24.2 °C 13 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
20 Aug 23.5 °C 12 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
21 Aug 26.5 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Aug 27.8 °C 8 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Aug 28.9 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Aug 31.0 °C 7 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Aug after 30.7 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
26 Aug after 29.6 °C 7 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
27 Aug after 26.8 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
28 Aug after 25.5 °C 8 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
29 Aug after 26.2 °C 8 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
30 Aug after 28.3 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
31 Aug after 29.5 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Sept after 31.5 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Sept after 32.5 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Sept after 32.9 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2019
After · 31 Aug 2019

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 · 247Every 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 15 August 2019 and 24 August 2019: 10 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 5,977 hectares (59.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mount Isa (5,988 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, class Very 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.