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Western Downs fire, 12 December 2019 Western Downs

Out · last detection 23 Dec 2019, 04:28 UTC

The fire started on 12 December 2019 in Western Downs, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,726 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 694th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 353 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
10,726ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
12 Dec 2019 – 22 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
12 Dec
2019
Heat detections
1,133
in a single hotspot: 437 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
18.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Dec22 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

121314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
54km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 25 Dec.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 673 ha in 2016, 268 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 743 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Western Downs where it started
    10,824 ha reached on 12 Dec
    0.3 %

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)
12 Dec 38.6 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Dec 35.0 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Dec 35.8 °C 4 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Dec 38.2 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Dec 39.3 °C 7 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
17 Dec 35.1 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Dec 33.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Dec 35.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Dec 37.9 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Dec 38.7 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec 39.3 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Dec after 36.0 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Dec after 37.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Dec after 32.8 °C 38 % 46 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Dec 2019
After · 29 Dec 2019

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 · 1,133Every 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 Western Downs fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 December 2019 and 22 December 2019: 11 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 10,726 hectares (107.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Western Downs (10,824 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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

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.