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Central Desert fire, 31 August 2017 Central Desert, Halls Creek

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2017, 05:28 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2017 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 42,771 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 218th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3503 with a page). Number 39 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Central Desert · 2023Central Desert · 2026Central Desert · 2026Central Desert · 2023

Burnt area
42,771ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
31 Aug 2017 – 26 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
31 Aug
2017
Heat detections
1,705
in a single hotspot: 706 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug26 Sept
25 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

31 Aug 2017 · 713 MW · 20 1 Sept 2017 · 675 MW · 79 2 Sept 2017 · 16,577 MW · 343 3 Sept 2017 · 1,215 MW · 94 4 Sept 2017 · 537 MW · 57 5 Sept 2017 · 1,397 MW · 145 6 Sept 2017 · 3,619 MW · 211 7 Sept 2017 · 113 MW · 50 8 Sept 2017 · 75 MW · 21 9 Sept 2017 · 63 MW · 12 10 Sept 2017 · 41 MW · 10 11 Sept 2017 · 43 MW · 8 12 Sept 2017 · 1,255 MW · 53 13 Sept 2017 · 477 MW · 73 14 Sept 2017 · 339 MW · 61 15 Sept 2017 · 370 MW · 49 16 Sept 2017 · 329 MW · 43 17 Sept 2017 · 475 MW · 77 18 Sept 2017 · 518 MW · 72 19 Sept 2017 · 285 MW · 34 20 Sept 2017 · 76 MW · 13 21 Sept 2017 · 120 MW · 17 22 Sept 2017 · 630 MW · 37 23 Sept 2017 · 2,196 MW · 113 24 Sept 2017 · 76 MW · 9 25 Sept 2017 · 89 MW · 4
31 Aug 2 Sept 4 Sept 8 Sept 12 Sept 16 Sept 20 Sept 24 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
56km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 694 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 27% of the area of London (428 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Central Desert where it started
    40,576 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.1 %
  2. Halls Creek
    2,328 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
31 Aug 29.1 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Sept 31.3 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept 33.5 °C 6 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Sept 33.3 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Sept 31.2 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
5 Sept 30.9 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
6 Sept 31.8 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
7 Sept 31.4 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
8 Sept 25.9 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
9 Sept 30.3 °C 7 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
10 Sept 32.4 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Sept 32.9 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Sept 34.7 °C 7 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Sept 35.5 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
14 Sept 30.7 °C 8 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
15 Sept 29.7 °C 5 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
16 Sept 31.2 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
17 Sept 32.1 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Sept 33.6 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
19 Sept 34.4 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
20 Sept 34.4 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
21 Sept 36.4 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
22 Sept 37.3 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
23 Sept 36.8 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Sept 36.4 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
25 Sept 35.6 °C 6 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
26 Sept 37.4 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
27 Sept after 37.1 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
28 Sept after 35.9 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Sept after 38.8 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
30 Sept after 34.3 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
1 Oct after 31.5 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Oct after 32.9 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Oct after 34.3 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Oct after 34.4 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Oct after 38.0 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Oct after 37.5 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2017
After · 3 Oct 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 · 1,705Every 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 31 August 2017 and 26 September 2017: 27 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 42,771 hectares (427.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Central Desert (40,576 ha, 0.1 %); Halls Creek (2,328 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 82, class Very 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,705 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.