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Mount Isa fire, March 2022 Mount Isa

Out · last detection 23 Mar 2022, 15:48 UTC

The fire started on 17 March 2022 in Mount Isa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,305 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 737th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 194 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Burnt area
10,305ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
17 Mar 2022 – 23 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
17 Mar
2022
Heat detections
359
in a single hotspot: 190 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Mar23 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

17181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
49km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,183 ha in 2016, 656 ha in 2017, 1,017 ha in 2018, 130 ha in 2019, 188 ha in 2020, 219 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,009 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mount Isa where it started
    10,324 ha reached on 17 Mar
    0.2 %

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)
17 Mar 39.9 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Mar 38.8 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Mar 39.2 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Mar 39.4 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Mar 39.3 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
22 Mar 38.2 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Mar 37.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 Mar after 37.0 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Mar after 37.2 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 52
26 Mar after 36.1 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.9 mm Very high 39
27 Mar after 36.8 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Mar after 36.5 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
29 Mar after 36.0 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
30 Mar after 36.4 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
31 Mar after 35.7 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
1 Apr after 34.8 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
2 Apr after 36.3 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Mar 2022
After · 30 Mar 2022

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 · 359Every 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 17 March 2022 and 23 March 2022: 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 10,305 hectares (103.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mount Isa (10,324 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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
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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.