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Central Desert fire, 6 May 2017 Central Desert

Out · last detection 9 May 2017, 05:33 UTC

The fire started on 6 May 2017 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,034 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1655th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 386 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
9,034ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
6 May 2017 – 8 May 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
6 May
2017
Heat detections
430
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 May 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 May8 May

How it evolved, day by day

6789

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
55km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Central Desert where it started
    9,076 ha reached on 6 May
    0.0 %

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)
6 May 32.4 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 May 31.7 °C 18 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
8 May 30.3 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 May after 28.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 May after 28.1 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 May after 27.5 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 May after 28.6 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 May after 29.8 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 May after 29.9 °C 12 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 May after 30.4 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 May after 31.5 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 May after 31.3 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 May after 27.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 May after 28.2 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Apr 2017
After · 15 May 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 430Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Central Desert fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 May 2017 and 8 May 2017: 3 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 9,034 hectares (90.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (9,076 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.