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Tablelands fire, 4 October 2018 Tablelands

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2018, 04:50 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2018 in Tablelands, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,522 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1261th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 668 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
6,522ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
4 Oct 2018 – 15 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
4 Oct
2018
Heat detections
368
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

456789101112141516

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
54km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Tablelands where it started
    6,578 ha reached on 4 Oct
    0.6 %

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)
27 Sept 24.0 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Sept 23.9 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Sept 23.7 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Sept 25.1 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Oct 23.0 °C 44 % 54 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
2 Oct 20.7 °C 46 % 51 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
3 Oct 21.6 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Oct 24.7 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Oct 29.0 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Oct 27.0 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Oct 26.6 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
8 Oct 26.4 °C 43 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Oct 28.0 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Oct 29.0 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Oct 29.7 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Oct 28.7 °C 39 % 41 km/h 3.9 mm Low 9
13 Oct 23.9 °C 61 % 37 km/h 36.4 mm Very low 0
14 Oct 25.0 °C 66 % 34 km/h 3.0 mm Very low 1
15 Oct 24.2 °C 74 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 2
16 Oct after 26.9 °C 49 % 30 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 2
17 Oct after 27.4 °C 49 % 31 km/h 13.7 mm Very low 0
18 Oct after 25.6 °C 56 % 33 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 1
19 Oct after 24.9 °C 57 % 36 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 2
20 Oct after 25.9 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
21 Oct after 28.2 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
22 Oct after 28.0 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Low 9
23 Oct after 26.3 °C 55 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm Low 6
24 Oct after 27.6 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
25 Oct after 27.0 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Oct after 28.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
27 Oct after 31.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 Oct after 32.7 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Oct after 32.3 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Oct after 28.0 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
31 Oct after 27.3 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
1 Nov after 26.3 °C 48 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Sept 2018
After · 22 Oct 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 · 368Every 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 Tablelands fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2018 and 15 October 2018: 12 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 6,522 hectares (65.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tablelands (6,578 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.