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Barkly fire, 23 July 2018 Barkly

Out · last detection 28 Jul 2018, 04:50 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2018 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,403 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2126th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 576 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
7,403ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
23 Jul 2018 – 27 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
23 Jul
2018
Heat detections
213
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
47km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 238 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    7,406 ha reached on 21 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)
21 Jul 26.2 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Jul 26.7 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Jul 29.0 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jul 31.0 °C 8 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Jul 31.3 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Jul 31.8 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Jul 30.7 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Jul after 31.0 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Jul after 29.5 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
30 Jul after 28.3 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
31 Jul after 29.2 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Aug after 29.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Aug after 31.4 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Aug after 27.1 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Aug after 29.6 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug after 30.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Aug after 25.7 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Aug after 24.7 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 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 · 213Every 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 July 2018 and 27 July 2018: 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 7,403 hectares (74.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (7,406 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 47 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.