Barkly fire, 3 September 2023 Barkly
The fire started on 3 September 2023 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 319,609 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
It is the 5th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 4 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 319,609ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 3 Sept 2023 – 20 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 13,465
- in a single hotspot: 445 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 171.1GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,034 ha in 2016, 73,940 ha in 2017, 209 ha in 2020.
- 30,891 ha Barkly fire, December 2017 47,427 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,681 ha Barkly fire, December 2017 13,171 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,606 ha Barkly fire, October 2017 49,856 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 113 ha Barkly fire, December 2017 5,239 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 52 ha Barkly fire, July 2017 32,481 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Barkly where it started321,863 ha reached on 3 Sept1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 30.3 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 4 Sept | 33.3 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Sept | 32.8 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Sept | 33.5 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 7 Sept | 34.4 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 8 Sept | 29.1 °C | 15 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 77 |
| 9 Sept | 30.9 °C | 11 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 10 Sept | 31.7 °C | 10 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 11 Sept | 30.6 °C | 9 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 12 Sept | 30.6 °C | 13 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 13 Sept | 30.8 °C | 14 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 14 Sept | 31.3 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 15 Sept | 32.3 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 16 Sept | 33.1 °C | 11 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 17 Sept | 33.5 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 18 Sept | 32.7 °C | 12 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Sept | 34.1 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Sept | 34.7 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 21 Sept after | 36.5 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 22 Sept after | 34.9 °C | 10 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 77 |
| 23 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 9 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 24 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 25 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 26 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 28 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 12 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 29 Sept after | 36.5 °C | 11 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 30 Sept after | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 3 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 190 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 13,465Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Barkly fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2023 and 20 September 2023: 18 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 319,609 hectares (3,196.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barkly (321,863 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 77, 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
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.