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Tablelands fire, 15 December 2019 Mareeba, Tablelands

Out · last detection 25 Dec 2019, 03:53 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2019 in Tablelands, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,936 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 625th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 323 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
11,936ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
15 Dec 2019 – 25 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
15 Dec
2019
Heat detections
540
in a single hotspot: 173 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Energy released
6.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec25 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192022232425

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
51km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 9 Jan.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,516 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba
    8,656 ha reached on 15 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Tablelands where it started
    3,358 ha reached on 15 Dec
    0.3 %

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)
15 Dec 33.0 °C 31 % 31 km/h 6.8 mm Low 7
16 Dec 31.7 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
17 Dec 32.6 °C 29 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Dec 28.9 °C 43 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Dec 27.4 °C 48 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Dec 28.5 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Dec 27.2 °C 51 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
22 Dec 29.4 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Dec 28.6 °C 50 % 45 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 16
24 Dec 32.3 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Dec 35.2 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Dec after 30.6 °C 46 % 38 km/h 14.9 mm Very low 3
27 Dec after 27.4 °C 58 % 35 km/h 3.0 mm Very low 4
28 Dec after 27.3 °C 56 % 41 km/h 1.2 mm Low 6
29 Dec after 27.0 °C 58 % 45 km/h 0.9 mm Low 9
30 Dec after 29.7 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
31 Dec after 30.9 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
1 Jan after 32.4 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Jan after 31.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Jan after 28.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Jan after 27.1 °C 57 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
5 Jan after 30.6 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Jan after 31.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
7 Jan after 28.2 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
8 Jan after 27.7 °C 57 % 45 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 13
9 Jan after 29.3 °C 54 % 43 km/h 1.4 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Dec 2019
After · 1 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 · 540Every 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 15 December 2019 and 25 December 2019: 11 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 11,936 hectares (119.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (8,656 ha, 0.2 %); Tablelands (3,358 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.

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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.