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Napranum fire, 3 September 2018 Napranum, Aurukun, Cook

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2018, 04:14 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2018 in Napranum, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,341 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 1593th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 854 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
5,341ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
3 Sept 2018 – 15 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
3 Sept
2018
Heat detections
145
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
709MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101213141516

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
50km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,447 ha in 2016, 2,985 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,026 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Napranum where it started
    4,225 ha reached on 3 Sept
    2.1 %
  2. Aurukun
    940 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.1 %
  3. Cook
    205 ha reached on 5 Sept
    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)
3 Sept 35.1 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 34.5 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Sept 34.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Sept 33.4 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Sept 33.4 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept 33.5 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Sept 34.0 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Sept 34.2 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Sept 31.5 °C 43 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
12 Sept 31.7 °C 41 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
13 Sept 33.3 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept 32.2 °C 42 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 32.8 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept after 34.7 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept after 35.9 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Sept after 33.6 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Sept after 34.2 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Sept after 35.3 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Sept after 33.5 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Sept after 33.4 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 50
23 Sept after 33.1 °C 30 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Sept after 32.4 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Sept after 33.3 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Aug 2018
After · 22 Sept 2018

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 · 145Every 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 Napranum fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2018 and 15 September 2018: 13 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 5,341 hectares (53.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Napranum (4,225 ha, 2.1 %); Aurukun (940 ha, 0.1 %); Cook (205 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

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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.