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Tablelands fire, 12 October 2023 Tablelands

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2023, 14:58 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2023 in Tablelands, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,595 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 577th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 444 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
12,595ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
12 Oct 2023 – 28 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
12 Oct
2023
Heat detections
458
in a single hotspot: 89 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct28 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516171819202122232425262728

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
51km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 901 ha in 2016, 771 ha in 2017, 596 ha in 2018, 8,435 ha in 2019, 2,615 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,257 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tablelands where it started
    12,672 ha reached on 11 Oct
    1.1 %

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)
11 Oct 25.6 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
12 Oct 24.4 °C 49 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Oct 28.2 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Oct 28.6 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Oct 27.8 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Oct 28.7 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Oct 30.9 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Oct 26.1 °C 46 % 51 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 21
19 Oct 25.4 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
20 Oct 27.0 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
21 Oct 27.3 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
22 Oct 29.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Oct 31.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
24 Oct 30.8 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Oct 31.0 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Oct 32.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Oct 30.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Oct 25.8 °C 50 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
29 Oct after 25.1 °C 48 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
30 Oct after 26.9 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
31 Oct after 27.5 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Nov after 31.1 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Nov after 29.4 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Nov after 27.9 °C 47 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
4 Nov after 28.0 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Nov after 29.9 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Nov after 27.5 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Nov after 26.8 °C 53 % 43 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 16
8 Nov after 27.5 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
9 Nov after 27.6 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
10 Nov after 27.1 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
11 Nov after 27.9 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Nov after 26.5 °C 47 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Nov after 27.4 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2023
After · 4 Nov 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 26 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1063 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031
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 · 458Every 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 12 October 2023 and 28 October 2023: 17 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 12,595 hectares (126.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tablelands (12,672 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 51 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
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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.