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Barkly fire, 2 August 2017 Barkly

Out · last detection 7 Aug 2017, 16:57 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,708 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 675th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 123 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
18,708ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
2 Aug 2017 – 6 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
2 Aug
2017
Heat detections
751
in a single hotspot: 205 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

234567

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
51km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 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
    18,847 ha reached on 2 Aug
    0.1 %

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)
2 Aug 32.0 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug 24.8 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Aug 24.9 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Aug 26.1 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug 27.9 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Aug after 28.3 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Aug after 25.9 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Aug after 28.5 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Aug after 31.4 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug after 31.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Aug after 31.4 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Aug after 31.8 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Aug after 32.5 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Aug after 32.6 °C 12 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug after 34.0 °C 11 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Aug after 35.0 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Aug after 32.6 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
19 Aug after 30.3 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
20 Aug after 30.2 °C 5 % 40 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 · 26 Jul 2017
After · 13 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 · 751Every 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 2 August 2017 and 6 August 2017: 5 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 18,708 hectares (187.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (18,847 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.