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Barkly fire, 13 March 2019 Barkly

Out · last detection 22 Mar 2019, 05:46 UTC

The fire started on 13 March 2019 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,040 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3457th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 797 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
5,040ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
13 Mar 2019 – 22 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
13 Mar
2019
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
967MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Mar22 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

13141516171819202122

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
55km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    5,101 ha reached on 13 Mar
    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)
13 Mar 40.0 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Mar 40.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 Mar 39.7 °C 8 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
16 Mar 37.6 °C 10 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
17 Mar 38.5 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
18 Mar 38.2 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
19 Mar 39.4 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
20 Mar 40.3 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
21 Mar 40.4 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
22 Mar 40.0 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
23 Mar after 39.2 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
24 Mar after 32.4 °C 46 % 64 km/h 0.7 mm Extreme 50
25 Mar after 36.5 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Mar after 35.3 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
27 Mar after 33.5 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 Mar after 33.8 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Mar after 35.3 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
30 Mar after 33.7 °C 18 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
31 Mar after 31.2 °C 8 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
1 Apr after 30.7 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Mar 2019
After · 29 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 · 159Every 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 13 March 2019 and 22 March 2019: 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 5,040 hectares (50.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (5,101 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 84, 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.