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Barkly fire, 29 July 2018 Barkly

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2018, 05:40 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2018 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,216 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1153th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 290 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
12,216ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Jul 2018 – 4 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
29 Jul
2018
Heat detections
487
in a single hotspot: 144 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

29303112345

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
56km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 23 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    12,248 ha reached on 29 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)
29 Jul 29.0 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
30 Jul 28.9 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
31 Jul 30.0 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Aug 30.5 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Aug 32.7 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 Aug 25.4 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
4 Aug 28.8 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug after 31.3 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Aug after 25.2 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Aug after 25.4 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Aug after 26.1 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Aug after 27.4 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Aug after 30.3 °C 7 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Aug after 26.2 °C 14 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
12 Aug after 22.7 °C 13 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
13 Aug after 22.9 °C 12 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
14 Aug after 26.0 °C 8 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Aug after 28.1 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2018
After · 11 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 · 487Every 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 29 July 2018 and 4 August 2018: 7 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 12,216 hectares (122.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (12,248 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, 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.