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Barkly fire, 13 May 2017 Barkly

Out · last detection 20 May 2017, 16:38 UTC

The fire started on 13 May 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,204 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2645th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 644 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
6,204ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
13 May 2017 – 20 May 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
13 May
2017
Heat detections
218
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 May 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 May20 May

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
45km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    6,182 ha reached on 13 May
    0.0 %

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)
13 May 30.2 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 May 30.3 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 May 30.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 May 32.0 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 May 32.4 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 May 33.3 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 May 31.5 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 May 30.8 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 May after 32.7 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 May after 32.6 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 May after 33.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 May after 32.5 °C 23 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
25 May after 31.6 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
26 May after 31.2 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 May after 30.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 May after 31.0 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 May after 28.7 °C 16 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
30 May after 27.3 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 May 2017
After · 27 May 2017

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 · 218Every 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 Barkly fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 May 2017 and 20 May 2017: 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 6,204 hectares (62.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (6,182 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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
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.