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Barkly fire, 3 November 2018 Barkly

Out · last detection 7 Nov 2018, 04:38 UTC

The fire started on 3 November 2018 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,382 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2559th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 687 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
6,382ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
3 Nov 2018 – 6 Nov 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Nov
2018
Heat detections
170
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Nov 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Nov6 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

34567

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
60km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 14 Nov.

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
    6,384 ha reached on 3 Nov
    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)
3 Nov 37.6 °C 32 % 41 km/h 1.6 mm High 34
4 Nov 39.2 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Nov 38.1 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
6 Nov 39.8 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Nov after 38.3 °C 21 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
8 Nov after 32.3 °C 26 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
9 Nov after 34.8 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
10 Nov after 35.1 °C 5 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
11 Nov after 36.3 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Nov after 40.0 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Nov after 39.5 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.8 mm Extreme 60
14 Nov after 39.5 °C 27 % 42 km/h 1.3 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Oct 2018
After · 13 Nov 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 · 170Every 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 3 November 2018 and 6 November 2018: 4 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 6,382 hectares (63.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (6,384 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, 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.