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Barkly fire, July 2021 Barkly

Out · last detection 17 Jul 2021, 15:17 UTC

The fire started on 10 July 2021 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,268 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2616th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 330 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
6,268ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
10 Jul 2021 – 16 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
10 Jul
2021
Heat detections
248
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jul 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314151617

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
43km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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
    6,239 ha reached on 10 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)
10 Jul 27.7 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
11 Jul 29.3 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Jul 30.3 °C 6 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Jul 29.5 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Jul 31.9 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Jul 33.3 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul 31.8 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Jul after 28.1 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jul after 27.1 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Jul after 28.1 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Jul after 28.5 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Jul after 28.0 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Jul after 31.5 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Jul after 35.5 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Jul after 34.0 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Jul after 27.7 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
26 Jul after 28.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Jul after 32.5 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Jul after 33.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jul after 34.7 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Jul after 35.3 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jul 2021
After · 23 Jul 2021

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 · 248Every 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 10 July 2021 and 16 July 2021: 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 6,268 hectares (62.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (6,239 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.