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Barkly fire, 24 September 2017 Barkly, Central Desert

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2017, 04:12 UTC

The fire started on 24 September 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,297 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1040th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 215 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
13,297ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
24 Sept 2017 – 29 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
24 Sept
2017
Heat detections
459
in a single hotspot: 273 MW
Danger at start
79
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Sept29 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
54km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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
    6,911 ha reached on 23 Sept
    0.0 %
  2. Central Desert
    6,522 ha reached on 26 Sept
    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)
23 Sept 36.8 °C 12 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
24 Sept 36.5 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Sept 36.6 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
26 Sept 37.1 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Sept 37.7 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
28 Sept 35.8 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
29 Sept 37.1 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
30 Sept after 32.2 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Oct after 28.1 °C 28 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
2 Oct after 29.0 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
3 Oct after 31.7 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Oct after 34.4 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Oct after 35.8 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Oct after 35.3 °C 12 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
7 Oct after 32.6 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm High 34
8 Oct after 33.8 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
9 Oct after 36.1 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Sept 2017
After · 6 Oct 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 · 459Every 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 24 September 2017 and 29 September 2017: 6 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 13,297 hectares (133.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Barkly (6,911 ha, 0.0 %); Central Desert (6,522 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 54 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.