How long did the Western Downs fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2023 and 11 September 2023: 6 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 25,189 hectares (251.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Western Downs (14,654 ha, 0.4 %); Toowoomba (10,735 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

AU · Australia · 2023-09-06 → 2023-09-11

Western Downs fire, September 2023 Western Downs, Toowoomba

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2023, 14:42 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2023 in Western Downs, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,189 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 240th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 211 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area: 25,189ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 6 Sept 2023 – 11 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 6 Sept; 2023
Heat detections: 1,939; in a single hotspot: 346 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 30.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 11 Sept 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

67891011

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

The weather it burned in

29°high

40km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,100 ha in 2016, 42 ha in 2017, 410 ha in 2018, 2,160 ha in 2020, 119 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,071 ha that had burned before.

6,003 ha Western Downs fire, December 2016 7,394 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Western Downs where it started

14,654 ha reached on 6 Sept

0.4 %
Toowoomba

10,735 ha reached on 6 Sept

0.8 %

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)
6 Sept	28.4 °C	26 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Sept	28.7 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
8 Sept	26.2 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.5 mm	High 34
9 Sept	21.5 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Sept	23.0 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Sept	22.6 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Sept after	24.5 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
13 Sept after	25.2 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
14 Sept after	24.5 °C	26 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
15 Sept after	26.2 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Sept after	28.4 °C	16 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
17 Sept after	29.9 °C	18 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
18 Sept after	29.5 °C	11 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
19 Sept after	27.6 °C	19 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
20 Sept after	29.1 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
21 Sept after	33.2 °C	16 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Aug 2023

After · 18 Sept 2023

Before After

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 10 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 342 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 107: 7.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak342 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM10490 µg/m³

Optical depth4.23

WHO 15

4567891011121314

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 · 1,939Every 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

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Western Downs fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2023 and 11 September 2023: 6 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 25,189 hectares (251.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Western Downs (14,654 ha, 0.4 %); Toowoomba (10,735 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned