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Barkly fire, 23 December 2017 Barkly

Out · last detection 27 Dec 2017, 04:44 UTC

The fire started on 23 December 2017 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,051 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2732th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 669 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
6,051ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
23 Dec 2017 – 27 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
23 Dec
2017
Heat detections
167
in a single hotspot: 167 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Dec27 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627

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
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 31 Dec.

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
    6,014 ha reached on 23 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)
23 Dec 36.9 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Dec 37.9 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Dec 38.9 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Dec 38.8 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Dec 38.5 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Dec after 38.2 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Dec after 39.6 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Dec after 38.1 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Dec after 38.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Dec 2017
After · 3 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 · 167Every 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 23 December 2017 and 27 December 2017: 5 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 6,051 hectares (60.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (6,014 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.