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Barkly fire, 14 March 2022 Barkly

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2022, 04:32 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2022 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,908 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2323th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 354 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Burnt area
6,908ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
14 Mar 2022 – 18 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Mar
2022
Heat detections
195
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar18 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
48km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 357 ha in 2016, 1,022 ha in 2017, 1,519 ha in 2018, 108 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,828 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    6,863 ha reached on 14 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)
7 Mar 41.2 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Mar 39.4 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Mar 37.9 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Mar 38.7 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Mar 39.1 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Mar 38.0 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 51
13 Mar 38.0 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
14 Mar 39.1 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Mar 39.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Mar 39.9 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Mar 39.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Mar 38.4 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Mar after 38.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Mar after 39.9 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Mar after 39.2 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Mar after 38.1 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Mar after 38.4 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Mar after 37.7 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Mar after 37.4 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 50
26 Mar after 37.0 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
27 Mar after 37.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Mar after 38.1 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Mar 2022
After · 25 Mar 2022

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 · 195Every 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 March 2022 and 18 March 2022: 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 6,908 hectares (69.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (6,863 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 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.