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Central Desert fire, 22 June 2017 Central Desert

Out · last detection 28 Jun 2017, 16:07 UTC

The fire started on 22 June 2017 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,857 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1697th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 401 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
8,857ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
22 Jun 2017 – 28 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Jun
2017
Heat detections
299
in a single hotspot: 378 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jun28 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
41km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.4 mm on 8 Jul.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 104 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Central Desert where it started
    8,791 ha reached on 22 Jun
    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)
22 Jun 29.2 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jun 29.6 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jun 30.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jun 30.3 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Jun 30.5 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Jun 30.5 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jun 30.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jun after 24.2 °C 33 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Jun after 22.0 °C 22 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Jul after 25.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jul after 28.2 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Jul after 30.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Jul after 31.5 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Jul after 31.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Jul after 30.2 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Jul after 29.5 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jul after 24.5 °C 47 % 37 km/h 5.4 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jun 2017
After · 5 Jul 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 · 299Every 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 22 June 2017 and 28 June 2017: 7 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 8,857 hectares (88.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (8,791 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.