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Shoalhaven fire, December 2019 Shoalhaven, Wingecarribee, Goulburn Mulwaree

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2020, 03:54 UTC

The fire started on 18 December 2019 in Shoalhaven, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 143,634 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 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.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 11th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 17 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Wingecarribee · 2020

Burnt area
143,634ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
18 Dec 2019 – 14 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
4
local government areas
Started on
18 Dec
2019
Heat detections
11,627
in a single hotspot: 716 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
6.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Dec14 Jan
15 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

18 Dec 2019 · 7 MW · 2 19 Dec 2019 · 12,155 MW · 704 20 Dec 2019 · 9,286 MW · 645 21 Dec 2019 · 19,580 MW · 387 22 Dec 2019 · 471 MW · 214 23 Dec 2019 · 6,451 MW · 409 25 Dec 2019 · 1,562 MW · 438 26 Dec 2019 · 5,516 MW · 719 27 Dec 2019 · 10,590 MW · 845 28 Dec 2019 · 11,953 MW · 1111 29 Dec 2019 · 775 MW · 279 30 Dec 2019 · 14,382 MW · 989 31 Dec 2019 · 19,707 MW · 1582 1 Jan 2020 · 2,391 MW · 415 2 Jan 2020 · 4,728 MW · 315 3 Jan 2020 · 2,373 MW · 403 4 Jan 2020 · 37,556 MW · 2037 5 Jan 2020 · 4 MW · 3 7 Jan 2020 · 214 MW · 21 8 Jan 2020 · 20 MW · 1 9 Jan 2020 · 6 MW · 1 10 Jan 2020 · 1,005 MW · 57 11 Jan 2020 · 16 MW · 3 13 Jan 2020 · 1 MW · 1 14 Jan 2020 · 117 MW · 38 15 Jan 2020 · 67 MW · 8
18 Dec 22 Dec 27 Dec 31 Dec 4 Jan 9 Jan 14 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
66km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.7 mm on 16 Jan.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 360 ha in 2016, 956 ha in 2017, 668 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned almost the same area as London (1,436 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

  1. Shoalhaven where it started
    126,009 ha reached on 18 Dec
    28 %
  2. Wingecarribee
    13,973 ha reached on 4 Jan
    5.2 %
  3. Goulburn Mulwaree
    3,304 ha reached on 28 Dec
    1.0 %
  4. Queanbeyan-Palerang
    426 ha reached on 19 Dec
    0.1 %

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 2020
Built-up area61 ha
Residents≈ 1,300

Inside the perimeter there were about 61 hectares of built-up land and about 1,300 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
18 Dec 34.8 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Dec 37.8 °C 16 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Dec 30.1 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Dec 41.4 °C 17 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Dec 20.0 °C 53 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Dec 28.6 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Dec 23.8 °C 61 % 43 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 5
25 Dec 26.4 °C 55 % 42 km/h 1.9 mm Low 6
26 Dec 31.5 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
27 Dec 33.1 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Dec 38.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Dec 34.0 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
30 Dec 39.5 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Dec 39.3 °C 12 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Jan 27.2 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Jan 27.9 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Jan 34.3 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Jan 42.7 °C 16 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Jan 20.9 °C 50 % 52 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
6 Jan 19.9 °C 78 % 34 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 2
7 Jan 30.9 °C 49 % 39 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 4
8 Jan 25.8 °C 61 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Low 8
9 Jan 22.8 °C 69 % 40 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 5
10 Jan 38.2 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Jan 25.9 °C 48 % 57 km/h 1.9 mm Low 11
12 Jan 18.8 °C 67 % 34 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 4
13 Jan 24.0 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
14 Jan 28.8 °C 45 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Jan after 31.2 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Jan after 31.2 °C 44 % 37 km/h 10.7 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Dec 2019
After · 21 Jan 2020

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 · 11,627Every 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 Shoalhaven fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 December 2019 to 14 January 2020 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 December 2019 to 7 January 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 143,634 hectares (1,436.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Shoalhaven (126,009 ha, 28 %); Wingecarribee (13,973 ha, 5.2 %); Goulburn Mulwaree (3,304 ha, 1.0 %); Queanbeyan-Palerang (426 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 7 January 2020 → 14 January 2020.

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.

Report an error
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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 December 2019 to 7 January 2020. 11,627 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 2020, 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.