Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Mount Isa fire, December 2019 Mount Isa, Burke

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2019, 04:06 UTC

The fire started on 14 December 2019 in Mount Isa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,904 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1179th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 562 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
6,904ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
14 Dec 2019 – 18 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
14 Dec
2019
Heat detections
258
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
78
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Dec18 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
57km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2017, 200 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mount Isa where it started
    6,520 ha reached on 14 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Burke
    402 ha reached on 16 Dec
    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)
14 Dec 42.0 °C 9 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
15 Dec 42.4 °C 6 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
16 Dec 42.5 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
17 Dec 42.2 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
18 Dec 42.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 1.8 mm Extreme 51
19 Dec after 41.1 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Dec after 41.6 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Dec after 41.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Dec after 40.1 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Dec after 41.6 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Dec after 43.0 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Dec after 42.7 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 52
26 Dec after 44.3 °C 6 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
27 Dec after 37.8 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
28 Dec after 37.4 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
29 Dec after 39.3 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Dec 2019
After · 25 Dec 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 · 258Every 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 14 December 2019 and 18 December 2019: 5 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 6,904 hectares (69.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mount Isa (6,520 ha, 0.2 %); Burke (402 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 78, 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.