Western Downs fire, 23 October 2023 Western Downs
The fire started on 23 October 2023 in Western Downs, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,965 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 205th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 196 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 26,965ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 23 Oct 2023 – 1 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 23 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 1,998
- in a single hotspot: 1,161 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 32.7GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 3 Nov.
This area had burned before
9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 83 ha in 2016, 20 ha in 2017, 1 ha in 2021, 2,517 ha in 2022.
What happened to each town
-
Western Downs where it started27,140 ha reached on 23 Oct0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Oct | 34.5 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Oct | 35.3 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Oct | 35.8 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Oct | 25.8 °C | 8 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Oct | 23.6 °C | 19 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 28 Oct | 26.3 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Oct | 26.9 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Oct | 30.7 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 31 Oct | 35.2 °C | 18 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 1 Nov | 30.4 °C | 14 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 2 Nov after | 29.8 °C | 24 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 3 Nov after | 27.8 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 2.7 mm | Moderate 14 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 25 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 162 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,998Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Western Downs fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 October 2023 and 1 November 2023: 10 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 26,965 hectares (269.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Western Downs (27,140 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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
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.