Murweh fire, September 2024 Murweh, Maranoa, Central Highlands (Qld)
The fire started on 2 September 2024 in Murweh, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 122,823 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
It is the 22th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 5 in Australia in 2024, of 638.
- Burnt area
- 122,823ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 30days
- 2 Sept 2024 – 1 Oct 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- local government areas
- Started on
- 2 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 7,745
- in a single hotspot: 422 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 67.5GW
- 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 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.6 mm on 2 Oct.
This area had burned before
48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 154 ha in 2016, 18,985 ha in 2017, 16,443 ha in 2018, 5,207 ha in 2019, 19,253 ha in 2020, 2,142 ha in 2021, 3,048 ha in 2022, 6,590 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 59,240 ha that had burned before.
- 13,796 ha Murweh fire, October 2017 22,228 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,626 ha Maranoa fire, December 2018 20,515 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,711 ha Maranoa fire, November 2020 15,321 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,409 ha Murweh fire, October 2020 17,200 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 950 ha Murweh fire, December 2020 8,208 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 561 ha Maranoa fire, September 2017 107,409 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 373 ha Central Highlands (Qld) fire, September 2023 338,949 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 180 ha Murweh fire, April 2023 11,469 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Murweh where it started95,613 ha reached on 2 Sept2.3 %
-
26,217 ha reached on 3 Sept0.4 %
-
334 ha reached on 24 Sept0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Sept | 29.2 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Sept | 22.8 °C | 13 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Sept | 22.9 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Sept | 22.5 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Sept | 22.3 °C | 41 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Sept | 26.9 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Sept | 28.7 °C | 18 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Sept | 28.1 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Sept | 27.3 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 Sept | 26.5 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Sept | 25.4 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Sept | 20.8 °C | 25 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 14 Sept | 23.2 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Sept | 23.0 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Sept | 22.7 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 17 Sept | 23.2 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Sept | 24.3 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Sept | 25.4 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Sept | 26.7 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Sept | 23.2 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Sept | 24.3 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Sept | 25.9 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Sept | 25.8 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Sept | 26.4 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Sept | 24.5 °C | 47 % | 45 km/h | 6.8 mm | Low 6 |
| 27 Sept | 23.0 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 28 Sept | 22.2 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 29 Sept | 27.0 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 30 Sept | 28.5 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Oct | 26.7 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Oct after | 23.3 °C | 44 % | 39 km/h | 11.6 mm | Very low 3 |
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 24 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 144 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 65: 4.3 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 · 7,745Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 20,515 haMaranoa17 December 2018 · 22 days · 14 km away
- 22,228 haMurwehOctober 2017 · 11 days · 19 km away
- 17,200 haMurwehOctober 2020 · 11 days · 23 km away
- 21,361 haMaranoa17 September 2023 · 32 days · 33 km away
- 338,949 haCentral Highlands (Qld)8 September 2023 · 58 days · 34 km away
- 25,887 haMurwehAugust 2018 · 10 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Murweh fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 September 2024 and 1 October 2024: 30 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 122,823 hectares (1,228.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Murweh (95,613 ha, 2.3 %); Maranoa (26,217 ha, 0.4 %); Central Highlands (Qld) (334 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.