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Tenterfield fire, 27 October 2023 Tenterfield, Glen Innes Severn

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2023, 15:07 UTC

The fire started on 27 October 2023 in Tenterfield, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,555 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 109th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 1104 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
5,555ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
27 Oct 2023 – 2 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
27 Oct
2023
Heat detections
377
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Nov 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Oct2 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

27282930312

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
72km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.6 mm on 3 Nov.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2017, 2,781 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,169 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tenterfield where it started
    3,162 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.4 %
  2. Glen Innes Severn
    2,424 ha reached on 29 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
27 Oct 10.1 °C 73 % 63 km/h 11.6 mm Very low 0
28 Oct 15.1 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
29 Oct 19.7 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
30 Oct 22.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
31 Oct 25.4 °C 23 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Nov 16.9 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
2 Nov 19.8 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
3 Nov after 15.8 °C 64 % 30 km/h 16.6 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Oct 2023
After · 9 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 1 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 195 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak195 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10280 µg/m³
Optical depth5.55
2526272829303112345
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 · 377Every 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 Tenterfield fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 October 2023 and 2 November 2023: 7 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 5,555 hectares (55.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tenterfield (3,162 ha, 0.4 %); Glen Innes Severn (2,424 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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.