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Barkly fire, 20 April 2018 Barkly

Out · last detection 4 May 2018, 15:54 UTC

The fire started on 20 April 2018 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,652 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1526th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 403 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
9,652ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
20 Apr 2018 – 3 May 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
20 Apr
2018
Heat detections
315
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 May 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Apr3 May

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526272829301234

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
54km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days 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
    9,641 ha reached on 20 Apr
    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)
20 Apr 35.9 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Apr 36.1 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Apr 35.7 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
23 Apr 34.8 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Apr 33.8 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
25 Apr 33.9 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
26 Apr 34.2 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Apr 34.3 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
28 Apr 32.6 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
29 Apr 32.7 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
30 Apr 33.2 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 May 32.9 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 May 33.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 May 33.9 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 May after 33.6 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
5 May after 33.1 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
6 May after 32.9 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
7 May after 32.9 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 May after 33.2 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
9 May after 33.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
10 May after 33.0 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
11 May after 27.5 °C 15 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
12 May after 25.3 °C 11 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
13 May after 25.7 °C 13 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
14 May after 27.4 °C 11 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Apr 2018
After · 10 May 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 · 315Every 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 20 April 2018 and 3 May 2018: 14 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 9,652 hectares (96.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (9,641 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 75, 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.