Western Downs fire, December 2023 Western Downs
The fire started on 3 December 2023 in Western Downs, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,579 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1065th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 782 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 7,579ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 3 Dec 2023 – 14 Dec 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 3 Dec
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 715
- in a single hotspot: 72 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.8GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 15 Dec.
This area had burned before
15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,058 ha in 2017, 322 ha in 2018, 1 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,113 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Western Downs where it started7,559 ha reached on 3 Dec0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Dec | 32.3 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 4 Dec | 34.5 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 5 Dec | 32.3 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 6 Dec | 35.3 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 7 Dec | 34.5 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 8 Dec | 34.1 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Dec | 32.6 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 Dec | 31.9 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Dec | 30.5 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 12 Dec | 32.2 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 13 Dec | 31.9 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Dec | 33.7 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 15 Dec after | 33.9 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 4.6 mm | Very low 5 |
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 8 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 715Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Western Downs fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 December 2023 and 14 December 2023: 12 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 7,579 hectares (75.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Western Downs (7,559 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class 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
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.