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Tablelands fire, 11 October 2023 Tablelands

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2023, 03:41 UTC

The fire started on 11 October 2023 in Tablelands, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,451 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 481th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 387 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
14,451ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
11 Oct 2023 – 23 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Oct
2023
Heat detections
877
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
56km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13 ha in 2017, 2,383 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Tablelands where it started
    14,520 ha reached on 10 Oct
    1.3 %

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)
10 Oct 25.0 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Oct 26.0 °C 39 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Oct 25.0 °C 41 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Oct 28.6 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Oct 29.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Oct 28.8 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Oct 29.9 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Oct 31.5 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Oct 26.5 °C 41 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Oct 26.2 °C 40 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Oct 28.2 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Oct 28.5 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Oct 30.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Oct 31.8 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Oct after 32.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Oct after 32.4 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Oct after 33.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Oct after 31.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Oct after 26.6 °C 47 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Oct after 25.5 °C 44 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Oct after 28.0 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Oct after 28.3 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Nov after 31.8 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Nov after 31.8 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Nov after 29.7 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Nov after 29.6 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Nov after 31.5 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Nov after 28.4 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Oct 2023
After · 30 Oct 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 16 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1046 µg/m³
Optical depth0.58
91011121314151617181920212223242526
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 877Every 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 11 October 2023 and 23 October 2023: 13 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 14,451 hectares (144.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tablelands (14,520 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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.