Murweh fire, April 2023 Murweh, Central Highlands (Qld)
The fire started on 18 April 2023 in Murweh, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,469 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 643th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 481 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 11,469ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 18 Apr 2023 – 25 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 18 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 456
- in a single hotspot: 59 MW
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.6GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.9 mm on 29 Apr.
This area had burned before
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,461 ha in 2017, 3,926 ha in 2018, 85 ha in 2019, 5,964 ha in 2020, 243 ha in 2021, 500 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,376 ha that had burned before.
- 4,157 ha Murweh fire, October 2017 22,228 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,957 ha Murweh fire, December 2020 8,208 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,816 ha Murweh fire, March 2018 6,167 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,110 ha Murweh fire, August 2018 25,887 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 85 ha Murweh fire, December 2019 5,312 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Murweh where it started10,164 ha reached on 18 Apr0.2 %
-
1,247 ha reached on 21 Apr0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Apr | 25.5 °C | 49 % | 31 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 10 |
| 19 Apr | 26.0 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 20 Apr | 24.7 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 21 Apr | 25.0 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 22 Apr | 25.1 °C | 29 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 23 Apr | 24.2 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 24 Apr | 24.2 °C | 38 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 25 Apr | 23.7 °C | 37 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Apr after | 24.5 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 27 Apr after | 25.0 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Apr after | 25.0 °C | 33 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 29 Apr after | 19.8 °C | 64 % | 32 km/h | 11.9 mm | Very low 0 |
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 22 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 456Every 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 Murweh fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 April 2023 and 25 April 2023: 8 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 11,469 hectares (114.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Murweh (10,164 ha, 0.2 %); Central Highlands (Qld) (1,247 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.0 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
- 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.