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Barkly fire, 22 December 2017 Barkly

Out · last detection 29 Dec 2017, 04:07 UTC

The fire started on 22 December 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,711 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 723th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 140 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
17,711ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
22 Dec 2017 – 29 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Dec
2017
Heat detections
664
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Dec29 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
44km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 31 Dec.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    17,541 ha reached on 22 Dec
    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)
22 Dec 37.3 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
23 Dec 36.0 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.8 mm High 27
24 Dec 37.9 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
25 Dec 37.8 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Dec 39.0 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Dec 39.1 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Dec 38.9 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Dec 39.5 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Dec after 39.0 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Dec after 38.3 °C 30 % 34 km/h 3.4 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Dec 2017
After · 5 Jan 2018

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 · 664Every 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 22 December 2017 and 29 December 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 17,711 hectares (177.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (17,541 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.
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.