Barkly fire, 30 March 2026 Barkly
The fire started on 30 March 2026 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,870 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2339th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 543 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
The power measured by the satellite is low (24.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 6,870ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 30 Mar 2026 – 8 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 30 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 149
- in a single hotspot: 25 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 595MW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 18 Apr.
This area had burned before
46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 464 ha in 2017, 2,664 ha in 2023, 83 ha in 2025.
- 2,664 ha Barkly fire, December 2023 32,775 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 464 ha Barkly fire, December 2017 10,532 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 83 ha Barkly fire, October 2025 100,607 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Barkly where it started6,893 ha reached on 30 Mar0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Mar | 30.8 °C | 19 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 31 Mar | 33.1 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 1 Apr | 34.3 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 2 Apr | 34.6 °C | 28 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Apr | 34.1 °C | 25 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Apr | 34.0 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Apr | 33.5 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Apr | 33.3 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Apr | 32.6 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Apr | 33.0 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Apr after | 33.0 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Apr after | 34.4 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Apr after | 33.9 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Apr after | 30.6 °C | 22 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 13 Apr after | 28.4 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Apr after | 29.2 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Apr after | 32.1 °C | 20 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 16 Apr after | 33.5 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Apr after | 32.4 °C | 44 % | 41 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Apr after | 29.1 °C | 57 % | 37 km/h | 1.8 mm | Low 11 |
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 31 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 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 · 149Every 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 30 March 2026 and 8 April 2026: 10 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 6,870 hectares (68.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barkly (6,893 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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
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.