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Western Downs fire, September 2021 Western Downs

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2021, 14:35 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2021 in Western Downs, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,604 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1505th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 392 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
5,604ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
9 Sept 2021 – 16 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
9 Sept
2021
Heat detections
868
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
59km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 703 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Western Downs where it started
    5,612 ha reached on 9 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
9 Sept 26.0 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept 27.7 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Sept 28.7 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Sept 28.1 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept 29.6 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept 18.9 °C 21 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept 22.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Sept 24.9 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Sept after 26.5 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 27.5 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Sept after 30.0 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Sept after 29.5 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
21 Sept after 19.9 °C 20 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Sept after 21.1 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Sept after 25.4 °C 14 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Sept after 27.7 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Sept after 29.9 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Sept after 28.7 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2021
After · 23 Sept 2021

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 · 868Every 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 9 September 2021 and 16 September 2021: 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 5,604 hectares (56.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Western Downs (5,612 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.