Barkly fire, 17 April 2024 Barkly
The fire started on 17 April 2024 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 54,245 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 157th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3512 with a page). Number 26 in Australia in 2024, of 638.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Barkly · 2016Barkly · 2017Barkly · 2023Barkly · 2017
- Burnt area
- 54,245ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 17 Apr 2024 – 12 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 17 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 2,097
- in a single hotspot: 170 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 495MW
- 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 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,421 ha in 2016, 4,408 ha in 2017, 659 ha in 2018, 2,601 ha in 2019, 259 ha in 2023.
- 2,702 ha Barkly fire, March 2016 5,174 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 895 ha Barkly fire, August 2017 5,764 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 259 ha Barkly fire, September 2023 8,047 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 245 ha Barkly fire, March 2017 8,482 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 started54,457 ha reached on 17 Apr0.2 %
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 were about 0.37 hectares of 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Apr | 32.2 °C | 28 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Apr | 31.9 °C | 27 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Apr | 29.7 °C | 23 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Apr | 28.4 °C | 19 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Apr | 27.3 °C | 23 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Apr | 28.3 °C | 27 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Apr | 30.1 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Apr | 31.6 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Apr | 30.1 °C | 29 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Apr | 28.0 °C | 25 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Apr | 27.9 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Apr | 29.9 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Apr | 31.0 °C | 26 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Apr | 29.9 °C | 33 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 May | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 May | 30.1 °C | 29 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 May | 30.3 °C | 31 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 May | 29.7 °C | 31 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 May | 28.2 °C | 29 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 May | 28.1 °C | 31 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 May | 28.0 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 May | 28.0 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 9 May | 29.8 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 10 May | 28.3 °C | 47 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 May | 27.2 °C | 46 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 May | 26.8 °C | 40 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 13 May after | 27.6 °C | 32 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 May after | 28.7 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 May after | 30.5 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 16 May after | 30.8 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 May after | 30.9 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 May after | 27.8 °C | 31 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 May after | 25.0 °C | 22 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 20 May after | 23.6 °C | 21 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 21 May after | 24.0 °C | 20 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 May after | 24.9 °C | 24 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
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 18 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 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 · 2,097Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 19,723 haBarkly6 October 2024 · 13 days · 9 km away
- 47,151 haBarkly6 August 2026 · 11 days · 18 km away
- 34,392 haBarkly4 August 2026 · 8 days · 18 km away
- 17,511 haBarkly18 August 2026 · 7 days · 32 km away
- 32,481 haBarkly28 July 2017 · 8 days · 35 km away
- 16,064 haBarkly17 April 2024 · 7 days · 39 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 17 April 2024 to 12 May 2024 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 April 2024 to 12 May 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 54,245 hectares (542.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barkly (54,457 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
- 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: 18 April 2024 → 17 April 2024.
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 18 April 2024 to 12 May 2024. 2,097 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.