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Central Desert fire, 3 August 2017 Central Desert

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2017, 05:27 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2017 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,707 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1202th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 264 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
11,707ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
3 Aug 2017 – 7 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Aug
2017
Heat detections
371
in a single hotspot: 353 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
8.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug7 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

345678

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
52km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 80 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Central Desert where it started
    11,837 ha reached on 3 Aug
    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)
3 Aug 20.5 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Aug 22.0 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Aug 23.4 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Aug 24.9 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 26.2 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Aug after 26.3 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Aug after 26.4 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Aug after 29.6 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Aug after 29.1 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Aug after 29.5 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Aug after 29.7 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Aug after 30.5 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Aug after 31.2 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Aug after 31.4 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Aug after 30.9 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Aug after 30.9 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
19 Aug after 29.9 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
20 Aug after 30.9 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
21 Aug after 30.0 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2017
After · 14 Aug 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 · 371Every 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 3 August 2017 and 7 August 2017: 5 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 11,707 hectares (117.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (11,837 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.