Barkly fire, 23 September 2023 Barkly
The fire started on 23 September 2023 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 40,762 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 242th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 122 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Barkly · 2018Barkly · 2018Barkly · 2022Barkly · 2018
- Burnt area
- 40,762ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 23 Sept 2023 – 9 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 23 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 2,123
- in a single hotspot: 238 MW
- Danger at start
- 68
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.2GW
- detected power per day, on average
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
36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 28 ha in 2016, 13,566 ha in 2018, 553 ha in 2019, 140 ha in 2021, 864 ha in 2022.
- 915 ha Barkly fire, April 2018 9,652 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 805 ha Barkly fire, April 2018 7,676 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 595 ha Barkly fire, January 2022 8,005 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 406 ha Barkly fire, April 2018 5,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 265 ha Barkly fire, April 2018 10,064 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 47 ha Barkly fire, October 2022 12,238 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9 ha Barkly fire, April 2018 5,253 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Barkly where it started40,686 ha reached on 23 Sept0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Sept | 36.6 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 24 Sept | 35.7 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 25 Sept | 35.5 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 26 Sept | 36.1 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 27 Sept | 35.6 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 28 Sept | 35.1 °C | 12 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 29 Sept | 35.3 °C | 14 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 30 Sept | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 1 Oct | 37.3 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 2 Oct | 37.3 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 3 Oct | 37.2 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 4 Oct | 34.0 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 5 Oct | 32.8 °C | 11 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 6 Oct | 33.9 °C | 8 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 7 Oct | 35.2 °C | 12 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 8 Oct | 34.3 °C | 17 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 9 Oct | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Oct after | 34.4 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Oct after | 36.9 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Oct after | 37.3 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 13 Oct after | 37.4 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 14 Oct after | 35.5 °C | 9 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 15 Oct after | 36.2 °C | 6 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 16 Oct after | 37.2 °C | 7 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 82 |
| 17 Oct after | 36.8 °C | 8 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 86 |
| 18 Oct after | 37.0 °C | 8 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 19 Oct after | 38.1 °C | 9 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
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 26 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 71 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 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 · 2,123Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 29,963 haBarkly14 April 2026 · 4 days · 20 km away
- 34,429 haBarkly21 September 2023 · 18 days · 22 km away
- 79,327 haMount Isa19 October 2024 · 15 days · 31 km away
- 15,831 haBarkly22 October 2024 · 9 days · 31 km away
- 104,417 haBurke3 September 2026 · 21 days · 32 km away
- 43,494 haBarkly28 September 2023 · 27 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Barkly fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 September 2023 to 9 October 2023 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 September 2023 to 9 October 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 40,762 hectares (407.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barkly (40,686 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 26 September 2023 → 23 September 2023.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 September 2023 to 9 October 2023. 2,123 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.