Skip to content
worldfires
en
AU · Australia · →

Barkly fire, 28 September 2023 Barkly

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2023, 05:09 UTC

The fire started on 28 September 2023 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 164,680 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.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 19th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 12 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Barkly · 2017Barkly · 2017Barkly · 2017Barkly · 2025

Burnt area
164,680ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
28 Sept 2023 – 12 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Sept
2023
Heat detections
7,087
in a single hotspot: 312 MW
Danger at start
82
Very extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
5.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Sept12 Oct
13 Oct 2023

How it evolved, day by day

28 Sept 2023 · 3,547 MW · 415 29 Sept 2023 · 19,583 MW · 1450 30 Sept 2023 · 19,105 MW · 651 1 Oct 2023 · 1,869 MW · 211 2 Oct 2023 · 4,649 MW · 270 3 Oct 2023 · 1,203 MW · 119 4 Oct 2023 · 872 MW · 281 5 Oct 2023 · 4,665 MW · 789 6 Oct 2023 · 12,266 MW · 1280 7 Oct 2023 · 9,600 MW · 968 8 Oct 2023 · 3,470 MW · 488 9 Oct 2023 · 817 MW · 122 10 Oct 2023 · 108 MW · 18 11 Oct 2023 · 14 MW · 4 12 Oct 2023 · 158 MW · 20 13 Oct 2023 · 5 MW · 1
28 Sept 29 Sept 1 Oct 4 Oct 7 Oct 10 Oct 13 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
59km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,154 ha in 2016, 26,715 ha in 2017, 2,338 ha in 2018, 730 ha in 2021, 701 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned almost the same area as London (1,647 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    164,295 ha reached on 28 Sept
    0.5 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside 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)
28 Sept 34.5 °C 12 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
29 Sept 35.0 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
30 Sept 35.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Oct 37.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Oct 37.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Oct 37.1 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
4 Oct 32.9 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
5 Oct 32.3 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
6 Oct 33.0 °C 8 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
7 Oct 34.2 °C 10 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
8 Oct 35.5 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
9 Oct 32.9 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 38
10 Oct 33.8 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Oct 36.5 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Oct 37.5 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Oct after 36.9 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
14 Oct after 34.7 °C 10 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
15 Oct after 35.5 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
16 Oct after 36.8 °C 7 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
17 Oct after 35.9 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 89
18 Oct after 36.2 °C 8 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
19 Oct after 37.6 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
20 Oct after 38.5 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
21 Oct after 39.0 °C 6 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
22 Oct after 38.9 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Sept 2023
After · 19 Oct 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 29 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 372 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 139: 9.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak372 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10531 µg/m³
Optical depth3.46
2627282930123456789101112
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 7,087Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 September 2023 to 12 October 2023 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 September 2023 to 9 October 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 164,680 hectares (1,646.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (164,295 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 82, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 9 October 2023 → 12 October 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 September 2023 to 9 October 2023. 7,087 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.