How long did the Richmond fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 August 2024 and 15 September 2024: 32 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 42,781 hectares (427.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Richmond (42,789 ha, 1.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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 · 2024-08-15 → 2024-09-15

Richmond fire, August 2024 Richmond

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2024, 15:42 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2024 in Richmond, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 42,781 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 125th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 37 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Richmond · 2019 Richmond · 2023 Richmond · 2021

Burnt area: 42,781ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 32days; 15 Aug 2024 – 15 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 15 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 2,169; in a single hotspot: 168 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 429MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug15 Sept

Play back 15 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

15 Aug 20 Aug 23 Aug 25 Aug 30 Aug 4 Sept 9 Sept 14 Sept

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

54km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,356 ha in 2019, 1,020 ha in 2021, 1,379 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,673 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 27% of the area of London (428 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Richmond where it started

42,789 ha reached on 14 Aug

1.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
8 Aug	28.1 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Aug	27.5 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
10 Aug	27.1 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
11 Aug	27.3 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.8 mm	High 31
12 Aug	26.5 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
13 Aug	26.7 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
14 Aug	27.6 °C	23 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 Aug	29.3 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
16 Aug	29.8 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Aug	29.9 °C	18 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
18 Aug	29.5 °C	20 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Aug	31.3 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
20 Aug	31.5 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
21 Aug	32.4 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
22 Aug	31.7 °C	17 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
23 Aug	33.2 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
24 Aug	33.9 °C	10 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
25 Aug	33.8 °C	10 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
26 Aug	33.1 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
27 Aug	32.6 °C	15 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
28 Aug	31.8 °C	19 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
29 Aug	33.8 °C	12 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
30 Aug	33.1 °C	17 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
31 Aug	33.7 °C	21 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
1 Sept	33.7 °C	19 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
2 Sept	35.4 °C	11 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 70
3 Sept	34.2 °C	21 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
4 Sept	30.0 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
5 Sept	30.9 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
6 Sept	31.1 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
7 Sept	30.5 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
8 Sept	32.0 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Sept	32.6 °C	17 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
10 Sept	33.4 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
11 Sept	33.6 °C	12 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
12 Sept	32.7 °C	15 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
13 Sept	32.3 °C	19 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
14 Sept	31.4 °C	20 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
15 Sept	30.8 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
16 Sept after	30.4 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
17 Sept after	24.8 °C	45 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
18 Sept after	29.3 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
19 Sept after	31.2 °C	28 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
20 Sept after	32.9 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
21 Sept after	32.5 °C	9 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
22 Sept after	31.9 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
23 Sept after	33.7 °C	9 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
24 Sept after	34.3 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
25 Sept after	34.4 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
26 Sept after	33.8 °C	25 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
27 Sept after	31.9 °C	18 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
28 Sept after	34.1 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
29 Sept after	35.6 °C	6 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
30 Sept after	35.9 °C	8 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
1 Oct after	35.3 °C	11 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
2 Oct after	34.4 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Aug 2024

After · 22 Sept 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 12 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1028 µg/m³

Optical depth0.27

WHO 15

13141516171819202122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718

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 · 2,169Every 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

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Richmond fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 August 2024 and 15 September 2024: 32 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 42,781 hectares (427.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Richmond (42,789 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2,169 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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