How long did the Murweh fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 October 2024 and 26 October 2024: 10 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 9,056 hectares (90.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Murweh (8,317 ha, 0.2 %); Maranoa (746 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.

AU · Australia · 2024-10-17 → 2024-10-26

Murweh fire, 17 October 2024 Murweh, Maranoa

Out · last detection 26 Oct 2024, 14:34 UTC

The fire started on 17 October 2024 in Murweh, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,056 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 857th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 284 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 9,056ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 17 Oct 2024 – 26 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 17 Oct; 2024
Heat detections: 638; in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 4.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 26 Oct 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Oct26 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

17181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

50km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 11 Nov.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 359 ha in 2016, 1,271 ha in 2017, 4,602 ha in 2020, 363 ha in 2021, 1,228 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,263 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Murweh where it started

8,317 ha reached on 17 Oct

0.2 %
Maranoa

746 ha reached on 21 Oct

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)
17 Oct	35.0 °C	19 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Oct	33.8 °C	27 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
19 Oct	33.2 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
20 Oct	32.4 °C	13 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Oct	33.6 °C	18 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
22 Oct	34.0 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
23 Oct	35.7 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
24 Oct	35.7 °C	14 %	50 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 61
25 Oct	27.7 °C	9 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
26 Oct	31.4 °C	8 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
27 Oct after	30.9 °C	22 %	42 km/h	3.7 mm	Moderate 19
28 Oct after	27.5 °C	37 %	39 km/h	7.6 mm	Low 6
29 Oct after	31.6 °C	17 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
30 Oct after	32.9 °C	15 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
31 Oct after	34.2 °C	13 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
1 Nov after	33.3 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
2 Nov after	35.4 °C	12 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
3 Nov after	34.3 °C	19 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
4 Nov after	35.7 °C	17 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
5 Nov after	36.8 °C	19 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
6 Nov after	38.3 °C	17 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
7 Nov after	37.6 °C	16 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 54
8 Nov after	36.8 °C	21 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 49
9 Nov after	38.8 °C	17 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
10 Nov after	36.1 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
11 Nov after	31.3 °C	37 %	34 km/h	1.4 mm	High 22

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Oct 2024

After · 2 Nov 2024

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 28 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1053 µg/m³

Optical depth0.56

WHO 15

151617181920212223242526272829

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 638Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

7,564 haMaranoaAugust 2023 · 6 days · 37 km away

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Murweh fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 October 2024 and 26 October 2024: 10 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 9,056 hectares (90.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Murweh (8,317 ha, 0.2 %); Maranoa (746 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned