Tablelands fire, August 2023 Tablelands, Charters Towers
The fire started on 14 August 2023 in Tablelands, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 24,634 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 246th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 219 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 24,634ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 14 Aug 2023 – 25 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 14 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 904
- in a single hotspot: 142 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 9.8GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,304 ha in 2016, 10,809 ha in 2017, 2,716 ha in 2018, 14,173 ha in 2019, 2,106 ha in 2020, 2,237 ha in 2021, 854 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 23,730 ha that had burned before.
- 13,960 ha Tablelands fire, December 2019 31,676 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,842 ha Tablelands fire, September 2017 10,858 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,612 ha Tablelands fire, October 2018 9,042 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 502 ha Tablelands fire, January 2018 12,463 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 225 ha Charters Towers fire, September 2017 16,684 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Tablelands where it started24,442 ha reached on 14 Aug2.2 %
-
397 ha reached on 17 Aug0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Aug | 22.9 °C | 47 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 8 Aug | 22.8 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 9 Aug | 22.5 °C | 46 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 10 Aug | 22.4 °C | 50 % | 42 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 11 Aug | 21.0 °C | 61 % | 40 km/h | 1.3 mm | Low 5 |
| 12 Aug | 23.6 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 10 |
| 13 Aug | 24.5 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 14 Aug | 25.4 °C | 32 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 15 Aug | 26.7 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Aug | 27.2 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Aug | 26.8 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 18 Aug | 28.4 °C | 28 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 19 Aug | 25.6 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Aug | 23.9 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 21 Aug | 23.9 °C | 50 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 22 Aug | 22.7 °C | 57 % | 34 km/h | 1.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 23 Aug | 24.9 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 24 Aug | 25.1 °C | 34 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 25 Aug | 23.7 °C | 46 % | 54 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 26 Aug after | 23.6 °C | 44 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Aug after | 24.5 °C | 38 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 28 Aug after | 24.0 °C | 38 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 29 Aug after | 25.2 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 30 Aug after | 26.5 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 31 Aug after | 28.3 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Sept after | 28.2 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Sept after | 27.4 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Sept after | 25.8 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Sept after | 27.6 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Sept after | 27.8 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Sept after | 27.1 °C | 37 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Sept after | 25.5 °C | 62 % | 32 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 8 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 47 % | 38 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 9 Sept after | 27.7 °C | 46 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Sept after | 26.6 °C | 45 % | 48 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Sept after | 24.6 °C | 46 % | 49 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 18 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 904Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tablelands fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 August 2023 and 25 August 2023: 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 24,634 hectares (246.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tablelands (24,442 ha, 2.2 %); Charters Towers (397 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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
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.