Barkly fire, 1 November 2024 Barkly
The fire started on 1 November 2024 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,771 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 854th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 140 in Australia in 2024, of 638.
- Burnt area
- 15,771ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 1 Nov 2024 – 12 Nov 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 1 Nov
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 417
- in a single hotspot: 152 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.9GW
- sum of detected power
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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 18 Nov.
This area had burned before
29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 395 ha in 2017, 3,656 ha in 2018, 1,194 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,554 ha that had burned before.
- 3,656 ha Barkly fire, November 2018 6,382 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 259 ha Barkly fire, September 2017 5,311 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 119 ha Barkly fire, September 2023 6,465 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19 ha Barkly fire, August 2023 42,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Barkly where it started15,776 ha reached on 2 Nov0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Nov | 36.3 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 1.9 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Nov | 37.4 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Nov | 39.4 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 4 Nov | 39.2 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Nov | 39.3 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 6 Nov | 38.9 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 7 Nov | 39.2 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 8 Nov | 38.9 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 9 Nov | 39.1 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Nov | 38.7 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 11 Nov | 39.7 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 12 Nov | 37.6 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Nov after | 40.5 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 14 Nov after | 37.9 °C | 18 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 15 Nov after | 37.6 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 16 Nov after | 37.6 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 17 Nov after | 39.1 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Nov after | 28.5 °C | 50 % | 40 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 23 |
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 12 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.0 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 · 417Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Barkly fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 November 2024 and 12 November 2024: 12 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 15,771 hectares (157.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barkly (15,776 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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
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.