How long did the Tablelands fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2023 and 22 October 2023: 8 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 8,123 hectares (81.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (6,720 ha, 0.1 %); Tablelands (1,442 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 53 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.

AU · Australia · 2023-10-15 → 2023-10-22

Tablelands fire, 15 October 2023 Mareeba, Tablelands

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2023, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2023 in Tablelands, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,123 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 991th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 723 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area: 8,123ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 15 Oct 2023 – 22 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 15 Oct; 2023
Heat detections: 262; in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 1.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Oct 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

53km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14 ha in 2016, 933 ha in 2017, 181 ha in 2018, 4,949 ha in 2019, 1,103 ha in 2020, 351 ha in 2021, 428 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,815 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mareeba

6,720 ha reached on 17 Oct

0.1 %
Tablelands where it started

1,442 ha reached on 15 Oct

0.1 %

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)
10 Oct	25.6 °C	48 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
11 Oct	26.3 °C	45 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
12 Oct	25.9 °C	45 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
13 Oct	28.7 °C	26 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
14 Oct	29.1 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Oct	28.3 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Oct	29.1 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Oct	30.9 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
18 Oct	26.8 °C	47 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
19 Oct	26.3 °C	46 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
20 Oct	27.6 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Oct	27.3 °C	44 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Oct	29.1 °C	31 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
23 Oct after	30.1 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
24 Oct after	29.5 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
25 Oct after	30.2 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
26 Oct after	30.8 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
27 Oct after	30.1 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
28 Oct after	26.2 °C	56 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
29 Oct after	25.3 °C	50 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
30 Oct after	27.0 °C	41 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
31 Oct after	27.5 °C	37 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
1 Nov after	30.3 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
2 Nov after	28.4 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
3 Nov after	27.6 °C	49 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
4 Nov after	27.4 °C	48 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Nov after	29.1 °C	43 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Nov after	27.3 °C	50 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Nov after	27.0 °C	52 %	42 km/h	0.3 mm	High 25

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Oct 2023

After · 29 Oct 2023

Before After

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 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1024 µg/m³

Optical depth0.29

WHO 15

13141516171819202122232425

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 · 262Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tablelands fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2023 and 22 October 2023: 8 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 8,123 hectares (81.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (6,720 ha, 0.1 %); Tablelands (1,442 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 53 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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.

Where it burned