Burned area
satellite only20,095ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 1 Jan 2020 – 14 Jan 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Snowy Monaro fire, 1 January 2020 Snowy Monaro
Out · last detection 14 Jan 2020, 15:33 UTC
The fire started on 1 January 2020 in Snowy Monaro, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,095 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 40th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 122 with a page). Number 10 in Australia in 2020, of 67.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only14days
1 Jan 2020 to 14 Jan 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 14 Jan 2020, 15:33 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only1 Jan 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 1 Jan 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only1,433
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 332 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 1 Jan 2020 – 14 Jan 2020
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only15,864MW
Total radiative power on 4 January 2020; hotspots that day: 343.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 4 Jan 2020
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model10.9FWI · low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 0.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 1 Jan 2020, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model32.1°C · 18% RH
High of 32.1 °C and minimum humidity of 18% on 4 January 2020; gusts of 68 km/h on 4 January 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 1 Jan 2020 – 14 Jan 2020
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 20,095 ha
- Dates
- 1 Jan 2020 – 14 Jan 2020
- Name
- Snowy Monaro
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/snowy-monaro-2020-01?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire snowy-monaro-2020-01.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-01 | 31 | 235 | 24.1 | 9.5 | 21 | 16.2 | 43.9 | 0 | 10.9 | bajo | 1 |
| 2020-01-02 | 111 | 1,244 | 26.4 | 6.8 | 19 | 8.4 | 33.5 | 0 | 21.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-01-03 | 176 | 1,873 | 28.2 | 10.2 | 20 | 14.9 | 42.1 | 0 | 38.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-01-04 | 343 | 15,864 | 32.1 | 16.3 | 18 | 24.8 | 68.4 | 0 | 66.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-01-05 | 62 | 86 | 19.2 | 8.9 | 54 | 13.7 | 42.5 | 2.5 | 5.1 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2020-01-06 | 0 | 0 | 19.5 | 7.6 | 59 | 12.3 | 41 | 3.9 | 6.2 | bajo | 1 |
| 2020-01-07 | 1 | 7 | 23.1 | 11 | 47 | 17.6 | 52.9 | 0.4 | 7.9 | bajo | 1 |
| 2020-01-08 | 29 | 229 | 26.8 | 13.5 | 27 | 15.7 | 43.2 | 2.9 | 25.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-01-09 | 193 | 2,239 | 22 | 11.9 | 49 | 14.1 | 37.8 | 0.9 | 4.4 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2020-01-10 | 17 | 226 | 29 | 12.1 | 29 | 20.1 | 56.9 | 0.2 | 27 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-01-11 | 110 | 1,120 | 24.7 | 10.9 | 25 | 14.2 | 59.4 | 1 | 14.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-01-12 | 100 | 1,044 | 17.7 | 9.1 | 46 | 14.1 | 37.1 | 0.6 | 9.8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2020-01-13 | 182 | 1,769 | 22.4 | 6.7 | 31 | 12.3 | 30.2 | 0 | 17.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-01-14 | 78 | 685 | 24.7 | 7.8 | 32 | 11.3 | 33.1 | 0 | 20.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-01-15 | 0 | 0 | 21.6 | 11.3 | 52 | 14.7 | 40.7 | 4.7 | 2.5 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 20,095ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 1 Jan 2020 – 14 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 1 Jan
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 1,433
- in a single hotspot: 332 MW
- Danger at start
- 11
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.0GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
1 Jan14 Jan
14 Jan 2020
How it evolved, day by day
1 Jan
4 Jan
8 Jan
11 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
32°high
68km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 15 Jan.
This area had burned before
12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 892 ha in 2016, 58 ha in 2017, 605 ha in 2018, 796 ha in 2019.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Snowy Monaro where it started19,988 ha reached on 1 Jan1.3 %
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 2020Built-up area0.19 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.19 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan | 24.1 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 2 Jan | 26.4 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 3 Jan | 28.2 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Jan | 32.1 °C | 18 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 5 Jan | 19.2 °C | 54 % | 42 km/h | 2.5 mm | Very low 5 |
| 6 Jan | 19.5 °C | 59 % | 41 km/h | 3.9 mm | Low 6 |
| 7 Jan | 23.1 °C | 47 % | 53 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 8 |
| 8 Jan | 26.8 °C | 27 % | 43 km/h | 2.9 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Jan | 22.0 °C | 49 % | 38 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very low 4 |
| 10 Jan | 29.0 °C | 29 % | 57 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Jan | 24.7 °C | 25 % | 59 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 12 Jan | 17.7 °C | 46 % | 37 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 10 |
| 13 Jan | 22.4 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 14 Jan | 24.7 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Jan after | 21.6 °C | 52 % | 41 km/h | 4.7 mm | Very low 2 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 10.9, a minimum humidity of 21% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 3.
FWI at the start
10.9
Minimum humidity
21 %
Days without rain
0
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Snowy Monaro fire, 1 January 2020
20,095 ha
14 days
FWI 10.9
Min. humidity 21 %
Wingecarribee fire, January 2020
8,176 ha
11 days
FWI 19.3
Min. humidity 17 %
194 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.9 mm on 2 Feb.
East Gippsland fire, January 2020
6,310 ha
15 days
FWI 10.3
Min. humidity 33 %
132 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.0 mm on 7 Feb.
Snowy Monaro fire, January 2020
48,535 ha
16 days
FWI 27.1
Min. humidity 24 %
133 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 27.9 mm on 8 Feb.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 3. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
4.7 mmfirst rain
15 Janthe day after it ended
68km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 14 Jan, and on 15 Jan 4.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 25 Dec 2019
After · 21 Jan 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 1,433Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Snowy Monaro fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 January 2020 and 14 January 2020: 14 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 20,095 hectares (201.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Snowy Monaro (19,988 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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 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 With cross-checks and a citable version
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
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. 1,433 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.
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.