Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Barkly fire, February 2019 Central Desert, Barkly

Out · last detection 2 Mar 2019, 16:33 UTC

The fire started on 25 February 2019 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,246 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3277th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 759 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
5,246ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
25 Feb 2019 – 1 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
25 Feb
2019
Heat detections
154
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Feb1 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2526272812

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 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. Central Desert
    2,751 ha reached on 25 Feb
    0.0 %
  2. Barkly where it started
    2,591 ha reached on 25 Feb
    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)
25 Feb 38.0 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 60
26 Feb 36.6 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Feb 36.7 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Feb 37.4 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Mar 37.0 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Mar after 37.0 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Mar after 37.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Mar after 35.9 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Mar after 36.9 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Mar after 37.6 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
7 Mar after 36.2 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
8 Mar after 37.3 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Mar after 38.8 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
10 Mar after 39.6 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
11 Mar after 41.3 °C 14 % 28 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 · 18 Feb 2019
After · 8 Mar 2019

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 · 154Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Barkly fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 February 2019 and 1 March 2019: 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 5,246 hectares (52.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Central Desert (2,751 ha, 0.0 %); Barkly (2,591 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.