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Western Downs fire, 7 February 2023 Western Downs

Out · last detection 13 Feb 2023, 15:20 UTC

The fire started on 7 February 2023 in Western Downs, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,664 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1489th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 1082 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
5,664ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
7 Feb 2023 – 13 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
7 Feb
2023
Heat detections
239
in a single hotspot: 291 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Feb 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Feb13 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
44km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 15 Feb.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,219 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Western Downs where it started
    5,647 ha reached on 7 Feb
    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)
7 Feb 34.0 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Feb 31.1 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Feb 28.8 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
10 Feb 34.0 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Feb 36.8 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Feb 39.6 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Feb 39.1 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Feb after 36.4 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 43
15 Feb after 32.6 °C 36 % 44 km/h 1.1 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jan 2023
After · 20 Feb 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 14 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1046 µg/m³
Optical depth0.59
5678910111213141516
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 · 239Every 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 7 February 2023 and 13 February 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 5,664 hectares (56.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Western Downs (5,647 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.