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Barkly fire, 14 December 2018 Barkly

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2018, 16:07 UTC

The fire started on 14 December 2018 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,729 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2932th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 786 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
5,729ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
14 Dec 2018 – 23 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Dec
2018
Heat detections
183
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Dec23 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

141516171820212324

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
55km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days 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
    5,674 ha reached on 14 Dec
    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)
14 Dec 39.9 °C 21 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Dec 38.0 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Dec 40.8 °C 27 % 50 km/h 4.9 mm High 25
17 Dec 40.8 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Dec 40.9 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Dec 39.6 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Dec 39.0 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Dec 39.8 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Dec 41.8 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Dec 41.0 °C 6 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
24 Dec after 41.8 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
25 Dec after 39.1 °C 31 % 56 km/h 0.9 mm High 38
26 Dec after 40.9 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Dec after 41.1 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
28 Dec after 38.3 °C 29 % 59 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 53
29 Dec after 39.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec after 38.8 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Dec after 37.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Jan after 39.2 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Jan after 40.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Dec 2018
After · 30 Dec 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 · 183Every 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 14 December 2018 and 23 December 2018: 10 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 5,729 hectares (57.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (5,674 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.