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Barkly fire, 11 August 2017 Barkly

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2017, 04:06 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 75,283 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 98th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 17 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Barkly · 2025Barkly · 2023Barkly · 2023Barkly · 2025

Burnt area
75,283ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
11 Aug 2017 – 8 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Aug
2017
Heat detections
2,992
in a single hotspot: 206 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug8 Sept
8 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

11 Aug 2017 · 218 MW · 57 12 Aug 2017 · 762 MW · 95 13 Aug 2017 · 5,640 MW · 344 14 Aug 2017 · 942 MW · 145 15 Aug 2017 · 795 MW · 100 16 Aug 2017 · 1,589 MW · 163 17 Aug 2017 · 6,323 MW · 385 18 Aug 2017 · 5,841 MW · 417 19 Aug 2017 · 1,433 MW · 177 20 Aug 2017 · 637 MW · 77 21 Aug 2017 · 1,659 MW · 152 22 Aug 2017 · 494 MW · 69 23 Aug 2017 · 449 MW · 46 24 Aug 2017 · 495 MW · 61 25 Aug 2017 · 323 MW · 43 26 Aug 2017 · 734 MW · 67 27 Aug 2017 · 204 MW · 24 28 Aug 2017 · 457 MW · 48 29 Aug 2017 · 156 MW · 27 30 Aug 2017 · 103 MW · 13 31 Aug 2017 · 222 MW · 26 1 Sept 2017 · 824 MW · 52 2 Sept 2017 · 797 MW · 40 3 Sept 2017 · 861 MW · 68 4 Sept 2017 · 1,028 MW · 96 5 Sept 2017 · 1,343 MW · 113 6 Sept 2017 · 978 MW · 77 7 Sept 2017 · 69 MW · 6 8 Sept 2017 · 39 MW · 4
11 Aug 16 Aug 17 Aug 21 Aug 26 Aug 31 Aug 5 Sept

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
56km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 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: 130 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 48% of the area of London (753 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    75,977 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
8 Aug 25.9 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Aug 27.8 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Aug 30.2 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug 30.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Aug 30.6 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Aug 31.6 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Aug 32.3 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug 31.8 °C 13 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Aug 32.9 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Aug 33.5 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Aug 32.3 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
19 Aug 30.4 °C 13 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
20 Aug 29.8 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
21 Aug 32.8 °C 6 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
22 Aug 30.6 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
23 Aug 31.7 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Aug 28.4 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
25 Aug 25.4 °C 14 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
26 Aug 27.2 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
27 Aug 25.7 °C 13 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
28 Aug 25.9 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
29 Aug 25.7 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
30 Aug 25.5 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
31 Aug 27.8 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Sept 29.7 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Sept 32.6 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Sept 33.6 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
4 Sept 28.9 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
5 Sept 28.6 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
6 Sept 28.8 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
7 Sept 28.2 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
8 Sept 28.0 °C 10 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
9 Sept after 29.2 °C 8 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
10 Sept after 30.6 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Sept after 33.1 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Sept after 34.0 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Sept after 36.2 °C 7 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 114
14 Sept after 27.1 °C 9 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 108
15 Sept after 29.4 °C 5 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
16 Sept after 30.6 °C 6 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
17 Sept after 31.1 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
18 Sept after 32.9 °C 6 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2017
After · 15 Sept 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 · 2,992Every 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 11 August 2017 and 8 September 2017: 29 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 75,283 hectares (752.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (75,977 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 77, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2,992 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.