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Barkly fire, 22 July 2018 Barkly

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2018, 05:08 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2018 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,894 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2329th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 627 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
6,894ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
22 Jul 2018 – 27 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Jul
2018
Heat detections
194
in a single hotspot: 349 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
10.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
43km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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
    6,974 ha reached on 22 Jul
    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 Jul 25.8 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Jul 28.6 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul 29.3 °C 12 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 30.0 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul 31.0 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
27 Jul 29.1 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
28 Jul after 27.6 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jul after 25.9 °C 20 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
30 Jul after 26.3 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Jul after 28.5 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Aug after 28.4 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Aug after 30.2 °C 10 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
3 Aug after 22.8 °C 15 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
4 Aug after 27.0 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Aug after 28.0 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Aug after 22.1 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2018
After · 3 Aug 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 · 194Every 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 July 2018 and 27 July 2018: 6 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 6,894 hectares (68.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (6,974 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.

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.