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Barkly fire, 7 May 2018 Barkly

Out · last detection 20 May 2018, 04:44 UTC

The fire started on 7 May 2018 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,003 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2762th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 744 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,003ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
7 May 2018 – 20 May 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
7 May
2018
Heat detections
256
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
906MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 May 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 May20 May

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
60km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 411 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    5,982 ha reached on 7 May
    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)
7 May 33.2 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 May 33.3 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
9 May 33.3 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 May 33.5 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 May 28.6 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
12 May 26.0 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
13 May 26.5 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
14 May 27.6 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
15 May 27.9 °C 12 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
16 May 28.2 °C 14 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
17 May 29.0 °C 18 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
18 May 28.2 °C 17 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
19 May 29.6 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
20 May 30.7 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
21 May after 29.3 °C 22 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
22 May after 29.0 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
23 May after 28.3 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 May after 28.9 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 May after 30.7 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 May after 31.4 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
27 May after 31.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 May after 30.7 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 May after 30.6 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 May after 30.3 °C 17 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Apr 2018
After · 27 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 · 256Every 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 7 May 2018 and 20 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 6,003 hectares (60.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (5,982 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 78, 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.

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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.