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Barkly fire, 5 April 2024 Barkly

Out · last detection 27 Apr 2024, 05:15 UTC

The fire started on 5 April 2024 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 33,852 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 307th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 47 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area
33,852ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
5 Apr 2024 – 26 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Apr
2024
Heat detections
1,594
in a single hotspot: 171 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
9.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Apr 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Apr26 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112131415161718192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
52km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 190 ha in 2022, 302 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    34,333 ha reached on 5 Apr
    0.1 %

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)
5 Apr 28.3 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
6 Apr 29.2 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
7 Apr 29.8 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Apr 30.0 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Apr 29.6 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Apr 27.8 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Apr 28.0 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Apr 28.4 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Apr 31.1 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Apr 32.6 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Apr 33.5 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Apr 34.0 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Apr 33.8 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Apr 32.4 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Apr 29.5 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Apr 27.3 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Apr 26.5 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Apr 29.1 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Apr 30.6 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Apr 32.6 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Apr 29.6 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Apr 27.3 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Apr after 28.8 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Apr after 30.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Apr after 31.6 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Apr after 30.4 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 May after 31.6 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 May after 30.6 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 May after 30.6 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 May after 29.6 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 May after 27.2 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 May after 27.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 May after 28.4 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Mar 2024
After · 3 May 2024

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 12 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1033 µg/m³
Optical depth0.30
34567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829
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 · 1,594Every 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 5 April 2024 and 26 April 2024: 22 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 33,852 hectares (338.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (34,333 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.