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Barkly fire, 28 July 2017 Barkly

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2017, 16:33 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 142,229 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 23th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 5 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
142,229ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
28 Jul 2017 – 18 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Jul
2017
Heat detections
6,632
in a single hotspot: 301 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
83.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112345678910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
55km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    143,499 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
28 Jul 28.4 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Jul 29.0 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Jul 29.4 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Jul 26.3 °C 23 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Aug 28.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Aug 30.7 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 Aug 24.6 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Aug 24.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Aug 26.2 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Aug 27.2 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Aug 27.5 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Aug 25.3 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Aug 27.5 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Aug 30.7 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug 30.9 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Aug 30.3 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Aug 31.1 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Aug 31.9 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Aug 32.1 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Aug 33.2 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Aug 33.7 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Aug 32.3 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
19 Aug after 30.1 °C 13 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
20 Aug after 29.2 °C 5 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
21 Aug after 32.8 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
22 Aug after 30.3 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
23 Aug after 31.4 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
24 Aug after 28.2 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
25 Aug after 25.2 °C 13 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
26 Aug after 26.8 °C 7 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
27 Aug after 25.7 °C 11 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
28 Aug after 25.8 °C 11 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
29 Aug after 25.3 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
30 Aug after 25.5 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
31 Aug after 28.1 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
1 Sept after 30.2 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
2 Sept after 32.5 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Sept after 33.5 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
4 Sept after 29.0 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2017
After · 25 Aug 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 · 6,632Every 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 28 July 2017 and 18 August 2017: 22 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 142,229 hectares (1,422.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (143,499 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 80, class Very 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.