How long did the Barkly fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 October 2024 to 1 November 2024 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 October 2024 to 1 November 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,565 hectares (135.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Barkly (13,548 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 84, 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.

AU · Australia · 2024-10-15 → 2024-11-01

Barkly fire, 15 October 2024 Barkly

Out · last detection 1 Nov 2024, 04:50 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2024 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,565 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1018th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3508 with a page). Number 169 in Australia in 2024, of 636.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Barkly · 2018 Barkly · 2018 Barkly · 2024 Barkly · 2025

Burnt area: 13,565ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 15 Oct 2024 – 1 Nov 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 15 Oct; 2024
Heat detections: 597; in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 435MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct1 Nov

Play back 1 Nov 2024

How it evolved, day by day

16 Oct 20 Oct 23 Oct 26 Oct 29 Oct 1 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

41°high

55km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,050 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.6% of the area of London (136 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

Barkly where it started

13,548 ha reached on 16 Oct

0.0 %

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)
15 Oct	36.7 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 Oct	39.3 °C	23 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
17 Oct	37.6 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
18 Oct	37.0 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
19 Oct	38.5 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
20 Oct	37.8 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
21 Oct	40.2 °C	11 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
22 Oct	40.6 °C	8 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
23 Oct	40.8 °C	13 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
24 Oct	40.8 °C	14 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
25 Oct	39.3 °C	15 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 78
26 Oct	39.3 °C	10 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 74
27 Oct	40.2 °C	8 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
28 Oct	39.4 °C	18 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
29 Oct	40.0 °C	8 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 84
30 Oct	40.2 °C	14 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 74
31 Oct	39.1 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
1 Nov	37.7 °C	24 %	45 km/h	1.2 mm	Very high 42
2 Nov after	39.5 °C	16 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
3 Nov after	41.3 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
4 Nov after	40.9 °C	16 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
5 Nov after	40.6 °C	18 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
6 Nov after	40.7 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
7 Nov after	39.9 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
8 Nov after	40.3 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
9 Nov after	40.5 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
10 Nov after	38.7 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
11 Nov after	39.4 °C	21 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Oct 2024

After · 8 Nov 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 17 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 214 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 89: 5.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak214 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10306 µg/m³

Optical depth1.80

WHO 15

1718192021222324252627282930311234

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 · 597Every 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?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 October 2024 to 1 November 2024 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 October 2024 to 1 November 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,565 hectares (135.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Barkly (13,548 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 84, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Start date: 19 October 2024 → 15 October 2024.

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 October 2024 to 1 November 2024. 597 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.

Where it burned