How long did the Barkly fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 June 2024 and 30 June 2024: 8 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 18,033 hectares (180.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Barkly (18,097 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

AU · Australia · 2024-06-23 → 2024-06-30

Barkly fire, June 2024 Barkly

Out · last detection 30 Jun 2024, 05:15 UTC

The fire started on 23 June 2024 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,033 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 703th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 110 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 18,033ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 23 Jun 2024 – 30 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 23 Jun; 2024
Heat detections: 537; in a single hotspot: 113 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 3.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 30 Jun 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jun30 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627282930

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

53km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 838 ha in 2017, 913 ha in 2021, 767 ha in 2022, 1,717 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,333 ha that had burned before.

157 ha Barkly fire, August 2023 6,963 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Barkly where it started

18,097 ha reached on 23 Jun

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)
23 Jun	23.0 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
24 Jun	23.7 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Jun	24.5 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
26 Jun	26.7 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
27 Jun	28.5 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Jun	31.1 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
29 Jun	31.9 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Jun	32.0 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 40
1 Jul after	23.8 °C	51 %	50 km/h	0.4 mm	High 38
2 Jul after	20.7 °C	36 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
3 Jul after	18.9 °C	27 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
4 Jul after	19.5 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
5 Jul after	23.3 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Jul after	28.0 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
7 Jul after	30.6 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
8 Jul after	29.5 °C	40 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Jul after	28.6 °C	44 %	42 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 39
10 Jul after	27.8 °C	27 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Jul after	28.8 °C	22 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
12 Jul after	29.5 °C	22 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
13 Jul after	24.6 °C	32 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Jun 2024

After · 7 Jul 2024

Before After

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 26 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 41 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak41 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1058 µg/m³

Optical depth0.44

WHO 15

21222324252627282930123

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 · 537Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Barkly fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 June 2024 and 30 June 2024: 8 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 18,033 hectares (180.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Barkly (18,097 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned