Burned area
satellite only7,863ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 21 Nov 2020 – 12 Dec 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Townsville fire, November 2020 Townsville, Charters Towers
Out · last detection 12 Dec 2020, 14:45 UTC
The fire started on 21 November 2020 in Townsville, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,863 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches 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 only22days
21 Nov 2020 to 12 Dec 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 12 Dec 2020, 14:45 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 only21 Nov 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 21 Nov 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only330
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 84 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 21 Nov 2020 – 12 Dec 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 only630MW
Total radiative power on 5 December 2020; hotspots that day: 70.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 Dec 2020
+− 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
model40.2FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 12.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 21 Nov 2020, 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
model33.0°C · 40% RH
High of 33.0 °C and minimum humidity of 40% on 7 December 2020; gusts of 50 km/h on 3 December 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 21 Nov 2020 – 12 Dec 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.
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
-
logLast day with fire: 7 December 2020 → 12 December 2020.
-
logStart date: 22 November 2020 → 21 November 2020.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 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
- 7,863 ha
- Dates
- 21 Nov 2020 – 12 Dec 2020
- Name
- Townsville
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/townsville-2020-11?v=2026-10-26A 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 townsville-2020-11.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-11-21 | 1 | 3 | 29.8 | 19.9 | 35 | 19.8 | 49.3 | 0 | 40.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-22 | 11 | 18 | 29.5 | 19.3 | 39 | 17.7 | 42.5 | 0 | 37.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-23 | 11 | 13 | 28.9 | 18.7 | 47 | 16.1 | 38.5 | 0.7 | 32.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-24 | 57 | 464 | 32.3 | 19.1 | 35 | 16.9 | 40.7 | 0 | 29.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-25 | 2 | 1 | 28.5 | 18.9 | 49 | 14.3 | 33.5 | 0.1 | 26.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-26 | 0 | 0 | 30.8 | 19.9 | 43 | 15 | 36 | 0.7 | 34.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-27 | 7 | 21 | 31 | 21.9 | 38 | 17.8 | 41.4 | 0.9 | 34.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-28 | 6 | 6 | 27.7 | 20.2 | 51 | 16.8 | 42.5 | 0.8 | 25.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-29 | 1 | 3 | 29.9 | 19.1 | 41 | 15.8 | 37.4 | 0 | 33.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-11-30 | 8 | 21 | 31.5 | 19 | 36 | 14.5 | 37.1 | 0 | 34.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-01 | 10 | 220 | 31.4 | 19.1 | 37 | 15.9 | 40 | 0 | 37.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-02 | 3 | 25 | 32.6 | 21.1 | 42 | 16.8 | 41.4 | 0 | 36.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-03 | 23 | 188 | 30.5 | 21.9 | 45 | 20.8 | 49.7 | 0.2 | 44.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-04 | 56 | 298 | 30.2 | 20.5 | 40 | 16.6 | 42.8 | 0 | 40.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-05 | 70 | 630 | 31.7 | 18.3 | 39 | 17.4 | 41 | 0 | 34.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-06 | 32 | 279 | 32.3 | 19.4 | 36 | 16.9 | 40 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-07 | 28 | 468 | 33 | 21.4 | 40 | 19.3 | 45.7 | 0 | 39.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-08 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 23 | 48 | 11.6 | 34.9 | 1.9 | 29.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-09 | 2 | 19 | 31.2 | 22.6 | 55 | 20.5 | 45.4 | 13.8 | 4.9 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2020-12-10 | 0 | 0 | 29.7 | 22.7 | 52 | 16.9 | 40 | 3.6 | 5.2 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2020-12-11 | 0 | 0 | 30.2 | 21.2 | 42 | 13.9 | 34.6 | 0 | 6 | bajo | 1 |
| 2020-12-12 | 2 | 6 | 30.3 | 20.9 | 36 | 13.1 | 35.6 | 0 | 21.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2020-12-13 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 19.5 | 32 | 10.3 | 32.4 | 0 | 21.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-12-14 | 0 | 0 | 30.4 | 20.4 | 33 | 13.9 | 31.7 | 0.1 | 18.7 | moderado | 0 |
| 2020-12-15 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 20.6 | 34 | 18.1 | 43.2 | 0 | 24.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-12-16 | 0 | 0 | 30.2 | 23.3 | 63 | 14.9 | 39.6 | 12.1 | 10.4 | bajo | 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
- 7,863ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 21 Nov 2020 – 12 Dec 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 21 Nov
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 330
- in a single hotspot: 84 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 149MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
21 Nov12 Dec
12 Dec 2020
How it evolved, day by day
21 Nov
25 Nov
30 Nov
5 Dec
9 Dec
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
50km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity
It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.1 mm on 16 Dec.
This area had burned before
73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 964 ha in 2016, 5,411 ha in 2018, 673 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,759 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Townsville where it started5,397 ha reached on 21 Nov1.4 %
-
2,499 ha reached on 3 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 area0.27 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.27 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Nov | 29.8 °C | 35 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Nov | 29.5 °C | 39 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 23 Nov | 28.9 °C | 47 % | 38 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Nov | 32.3 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Nov | 28.5 °C | 49 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 26 Nov | 30.8 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Nov | 31.0 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Nov | 27.7 °C | 51 % | 42 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Nov | 29.9 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Nov | 31.5 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Dec | 31.4 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Dec | 32.6 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 3 Dec | 30.5 °C | 45 % | 50 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Dec | 30.2 °C | 40 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Dec | 31.7 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Dec | 32.3 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Dec | 33.0 °C | 40 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Dec | 31.9 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 1.9 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Dec | 31.2 °C | 55 % | 45 km/h | 13.8 mm | Very low 5 |
| 10 Dec | 29.7 °C | 52 % | 40 km/h | 3.6 mm | Very low 5 |
| 11 Dec | 30.2 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 12 Dec | 30.3 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 13 Dec after | 31.4 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 14 Dec after | 30.4 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 15 Dec after | 33.5 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Dec after | 30.2 °C | 63 % | 40 km/h | 12.1 mm | Low 10 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 14 Nov 2020
After · 19 Dec 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 · 330Every 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
- 8,676 haCharters Towers26 September 2025 · 18 days · 10 km away
- 10,024 haCharters Towers9 September 2025 · 6 days · 11 km away
- 7,824 haTownsvilleApril 2020 · 15 days · 22 km away
- 5,730 haCharters Towers4 November 2025 · 6 days · 31 km away
- 5,784 haCharters Towers4 November 2024 · 11 days · 32 km away
- 6,232 haCharters Towers15 August 2022 · 3 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Townsville fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 November 2020 to 12 December 2020 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 November 2020 to 7 December 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,863 hectares (78.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Townsville (5,397 ha, 1.4 %); Charters Towers (2,499 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 7 December 2020 → 12 December 2020.
- Start date: 22 November 2020 → 21 November 2020.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 November 2020 to 7 December 2020. 330 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.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.