Burned area
satellite only29,795ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 11 Dec 2019 – 6 Jan 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Tamworth fire, 11 December 2019 Tamworth, Walcha
Out · last detection 7 Jan 2020, 14:23 UTC
The fire started on 11 December 2019 in Tamworth, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,795 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 28th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 122 with a page). Number 56 in Australia in 2019, of 288.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only27days
11 Dec 2019 to 6 Jan 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 7 Jan 2020, 14:23 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only11 Dec 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 11 Dec 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only3,810
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 578 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 11 Dec 2019 – 6 Jan 2020
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only6,754MW
Total radiative power on 17 December 2019; hotspots that day: 537.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 17 Dec 2019
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model44.3FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 8.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 11 Dec 2019, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model35.1°C · 18% RH
High of 35.1 °C and minimum humidity of 18% on 4 January 2020; gusts of 48 km/h on 5 January 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 11 Dec 2019 – 6 Jan 2020
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 40people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 2.9 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 29,795 ha
- Dates
- 11 Dec 2019 – 6 Jan 2020
- Name
- Tamworth
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/tamworth-2019-12-2?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire tamworth-2019-12-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-12-11 | 9 | 13 | 31.2 | 16.8 | 20 | 15.2 | 45 | 2.1 | 44.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-12 | 6 | 46 | 27.8 | 14.5 | 23 | 14.8 | 39.6 | 0.2 | 13.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2019-12-13 | 12 | 36 | 24.6 | 14.5 | 34 | 12.2 | 38.2 | 0.4 | 14.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2019-12-14 | 85 | 934 | 27.9 | 11.3 | 23 | 13.9 | 40.7 | 0 | 29.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-15 | 189 | 2,237 | 28.6 | 14.4 | 20 | 15.5 | 45 | 0 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-16 | 269 | 6,689 | 28.9 | 12.6 | 15 | 16.6 | 44.6 | 0 | 45.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-17 | 537 | 6,754 | 27.6 | 8.9 | 26 | 14.9 | 40.3 | 0 | 37.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-18 | 532 | 3,637 | 30.4 | 8.1 | 18 | 9.4 | 28.1 | 0 | 32.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-19 | 280 | 4,476 | 32.1 | 12.8 | 18 | 11.2 | 33.8 | 0 | 41.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-20 | 371 | 4,471 | 33.3 | 14.9 | 20 | 10.8 | 35.3 | 0 | 39.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-21 | 209 | 5,391 | 34.5 | 14.7 | 19 | 14.2 | 40.3 | 0 | 48.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-22 | 92 | 899 | 29.2 | 13.6 | 36 | 18.2 | 47.9 | 0 | 37.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-23 | 0 | 0 | 26.8 | 12.8 | 36 | 14 | 37.1 | 0.3 | 24.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-24 | 20 | 61 | 29.5 | 16.1 | 28 | 17.1 | 47.9 | 0.2 | 29.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-25 | 61 | 420 | 24.2 | 15.6 | 37 | 14.4 | 39.2 | 1.6 | 34.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-26 | 97 | 765 | 28.5 | 12.3 | 24 | 16.1 | 45 | 0 | 27.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-27 | 92 | 742 | 29.8 | 10 | 12 | 15.7 | 42.8 | 0 | 48.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-28 | 208 | 3,541 | 32 | 9.1 | 11 | 8.5 | 30.2 | 0 | 40.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-29 | 96 | 2,053 | 32.9 | 13.1 | 13 | 8.3 | 26.3 | 0 | 43.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-30 | 112 | 1,549 | 32.5 | 14.8 | 15 | 12.1 | 33.5 | 0 | 45.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-31 | 121 | 2,716 | 32.9 | 15.2 | 14 | 12.6 | 37.1 | 0 | 52.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-01-01 | 44 | 622 | 32.9 | 15.7 | 19 | 11 | 32.4 | 0 | 52.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-01-02 | 78 | 430 | 33 | 18.4 | 24 | 13.8 | 35.6 | 1.1 | 41 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-01-03 | 88 | 558 | 32.7 | 17.6 | 23 | 10.2 | 31 | 0 | 35.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-01-04 | 138 | 3,554 | 35.1 | 18.1 | 18 | 14.8 | 43.2 | 0.3 | 54.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-01-05 | 55 | 1,164 | 34.3 | 16.5 | 20 | 19.2 | 48.2 | 0.6 | 44.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-01-06 | 4 | 60 | 30.7 | 14.8 | 32 | 19 | 45.7 | 1.5 | 23.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-01-07 | 5 | 16 | 29.2 | 16.4 | 34 | 10.8 | 27.4 | 3.5 | 20.2 | moderado | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 29,795ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 11 Dec 2019 – 6 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 11 Dec
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 3,810
- in a single hotspot: 578 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.0GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
11 Dec6 Jan
7 Jan 2020
How it evolved, day by day
11 Dec
17 Dec
24 Dec
30 Dec
5 Jan
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
48km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity
It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 7 Jan.
This area had burned before
3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 252 ha in 2017, 786 ha in 2018.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Tamworth where it started29,800 ha reached on 11 Dec3.0 %
-
245 ha reached on 18 Dec0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Built-up area2.9 ha
Residents≈ 40
Inside the perimeter there were about 2.9 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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 Dec | 31.2 °C | 20 % | 45 km/h | 2.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Dec | 27.8 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 13 Dec | 24.6 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 14 Dec | 27.9 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Dec | 28.6 °C | 20 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Dec | 28.9 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Dec | 27.6 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Dec | 30.4 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Dec | 32.1 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Dec | 33.3 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Dec | 34.5 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 22 Dec | 29.2 °C | 36 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 23 Dec | 26.8 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 24 Dec | 29.5 °C | 28 % | 48 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Dec | 24.2 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 1.6 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Dec | 28.5 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 27 Dec | 29.8 °C | 12 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 28 Dec | 32.0 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Dec | 32.9 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Dec | 32.5 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 31 Dec | 32.9 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Jan | 32.9 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 2 Jan | 33.0 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 1.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Jan | 32.7 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Jan | 35.1 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.3 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Jan | 34.3 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Jan | 30.7 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 1.5 mm | High 23 |
| 7 Jan after | 29.2 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 3.5 mm | Moderate 20 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 44.3, a minimum humidity of 20% and 8 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 14.
FWI at the start
44.3
Minimum humidity
20 %
Days without rain
8
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Tamworth fire, 11 December 2019
29,795 ha
27 days
FWI 44.3
Min. humidity 20 %
Mid-Coast fire, November 2019
11,020 ha
8 days
FWI 37.6
Min. humidity 20 %
140 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.8 mm on 24 Nov.
Kempsey fire, October 2023
26,658 ha
11 days
FWI 36.7
Min. humidity 22 %
129 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 14.5 mm on 26 Oct.
Narrabri fire, December 2023
10,407 ha
7 days
FWI 33.8
Min. humidity 18 %
197 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.8 mm on 19 Dec.
Warrumbungle fire, January 2016
8,065 ha
8 days
FWI 33.1
Min. humidity 22 %
190 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 12.9 mm on 22 Jan.
Tamworth fire, January 2018
16,073 ha
7 days
FWI 31.0
Min. humidity 19 %
136 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 16.3 mm on 25 Jan.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 14. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
3.5 mmfirst rain
7 Janthe day after it ended
48km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 6 Jan, and on 7 Jan 3.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 4 Dec 2019
After · 13 Jan 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 3,810Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tamworth fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 December 2019 and 6 January 2020: 27 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 29,795 hectares (298.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tamworth (29,800 ha, 3.0 %); Walcha (245 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
- 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,810 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.