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Barkly fire, 11 October 2017 Barkly

Out · last detection 19 Oct 2017, 04:38 UTC

The fire started on 11 October 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,841 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 388th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 64 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
28,841ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Oct 2017 – 18 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Oct
2017
Heat detections
1,244
in a single hotspot: 209 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
13.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Oct18 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
53km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 169 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    29,043 ha reached on 11 Oct
    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)
11 Oct 35.7 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.7 mm Extreme 57
12 Oct 37.4 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Oct 37.6 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Oct 36.8 °C 10 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
15 Oct 36.3 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Oct 36.6 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
17 Oct 36.9 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
18 Oct 38.3 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Oct after 38.9 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
20 Oct after 37.1 °C 21 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
21 Oct after 35.6 °C 12 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
22 Oct after 34.2 °C 5 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
23 Oct after 34.9 °C 5 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
24 Oct after 37.6 °C 5 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Oct after 40.1 °C 4 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
26 Oct after 39.7 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
27 Oct after 38.6 °C 19 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 91
28 Oct after 39.0 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
29 Oct after 39.0 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Oct 2017
After · 25 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 · 1,244Every 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 October 2017 and 18 October 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 28,841 hectares (288.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (29,043 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, 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.