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Barkly fire, 2 December 2017 Barkly

Out · last detection 9 Dec 2017, 16:33 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 47,427 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 183th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 32 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
47,427ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
2 Dec 2017 – 8 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
2 Dec
2017
Heat detections
1,768
in a single hotspot: 276 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
28.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec8 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

23456789

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
55km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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: 70 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    47,725 ha reached on 2 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
26 Nov 36.7 °C 29 % 43 km/h 1.0 mm High 29
27 Nov 31.1 °C 41 % 37 km/h 3.7 mm Low 8
28 Nov 33.0 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
29 Nov 35.6 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
30 Nov 37.9 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
1 Dec 38.2 °C 35 % 45 km/h 2.2 mm High 24
2 Dec 36.3 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
3 Dec 34.9 °C 8 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Dec 33.3 °C 8 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Dec 33.9 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Dec 36.7 °C 7 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Dec 39.5 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Dec 39.8 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Dec after 39.9 °C 11 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
10 Dec after 40.3 °C 6 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
11 Dec after 41.0 °C 5 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
12 Dec after 41.1 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Dec after 39.4 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Dec after 38.1 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Dec after 38.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
16 Dec after 41.1 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Dec after 41.4 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Dec after 40.1 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Dec after 38.5 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 56
20 Dec after 38.9 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.7 mm Extreme 52
21 Dec after 35.9 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Nov 2017
After · 15 Dec 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 · 1,768Every 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 December 2017 and 8 December 2017: 7 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 47,427 hectares (474.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (47,725 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.0 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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.

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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.

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.