Mount Isa fire, 15 September 2022 Mount Isa
The fire started on 15 September 2022 in Mount Isa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,411 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1087th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 316 in Australia in 2022, of 566.
- Burnt area
- 7,411ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 15 Sept 2022 – 19 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 15 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 246
- in a single hotspot: 222 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.6GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.7 mm on 28 Sept.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 39 ha in 2017, 11 ha in 2018.
What happened to each town
-
Mount Isa where it started7,476 ha reached on 15 Sept0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Sept | 34.2 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Sept | 37.5 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 16 Sept | 36.2 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Sept | 35.0 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 18 Sept | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 19 Sept | 36.8 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 20 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 29 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 22 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 13 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 24 Sept after | 32.5 °C | 10 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 25 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 6 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 26 Sept after | 36.5 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 27 Sept after | 35.4 °C | 14 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 95 |
| 28 Sept after | 21.9 °C | 48 % | 48 km/h | 11.7 mm | Low 8 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 20 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 246Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mount Isa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 September 2022 and 19 September 2022: 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 7,411 hectares (74.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mount Isa (7,476 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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
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.