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Central Desert fire, 25 August 2017 Central Desert

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2017, 05:16 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2017 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,813 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 783th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 152 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

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Suggestions: Central Desert · 2025Central Desert · 2017Central Desert · 2017Central Desert · 2025

Burnt area
16,813ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
25 Aug 2017 – 15 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
25 Aug
2017
Heat detections
630
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
75
Very extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
355MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug15 Sept
15 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

25 Aug 2017 · 251 MW · 60 26 Aug 2017 · 318 MW · 46 27 Aug 2017 · 476 MW · 62 28 Aug 2017 · 136 MW · 21 29 Aug 2017 · 85 MW · 28 30 Aug 2017 · 46 MW · 12 31 Aug 2017 · 52 MW · 10 1 Sept 2017 · 208 MW · 11 2 Sept 2017 · 1,694 MW · 53 3 Sept 2017 · 1,799 MW · 59 4 Sept 2017 · 819 MW · 43 5 Sept 2017 · 195 MW · 29 6 Sept 2017 · 488 MW · 22 7 Sept 2017 · 76 MW · 11 8 Sept 2017 · 15 MW · 11 9 Sept 2017 · 74 MW · 18 10 Sept 2017 · 128 MW · 24 11 Sept 2017 · 121 MW · 17 12 Sept 2017 · 285 MW · 29 13 Sept 2017 · 479 MW · 45 14 Sept 2017 · 56 MW · 18 15 Sept 2017 · 10 MW · 1
25 Aug 29 Aug 2 Sept 3 Sept 6 Sept 10 Sept 14 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
67km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 424 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 11% of the area of London (168 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
    16,678 ha reached on 25 Aug
    0.1 %

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)
19 Aug 32.3 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
20 Aug 33.2 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
21 Aug 34.4 °C 13 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Aug 34.5 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Aug 34.6 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
24 Aug 33.3 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
25 Aug 29.0 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
26 Aug 29.0 °C 10 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
27 Aug 29.0 °C 12 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
28 Aug 25.9 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
29 Aug 27.8 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
30 Aug 27.6 °C 12 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
31 Aug 28.8 °C 7 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
1 Sept 30.9 °C 4 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
2 Sept 33.6 °C 6 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Sept 34.9 °C 7 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Sept 33.0 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
5 Sept 31.6 °C 13 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
6 Sept 32.5 °C 12 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
7 Sept 31.6 °C 11 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
8 Sept 27.5 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
9 Sept 30.2 °C 7 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
10 Sept 32.4 °C 8 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
11 Sept 33.1 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
12 Sept 35.0 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Sept 36.9 °C 4 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
14 Sept 30.8 °C 8 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 106
15 Sept 30.4 °C 7 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 90
16 Sept after 31.6 °C 4 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
17 Sept after 32.4 °C 3 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
18 Sept after 33.3 °C 5 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
19 Sept after 34.6 °C 4 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
20 Sept after 34.3 °C 6 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
21 Sept after 36.1 °C 6 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Sept after 37.1 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
23 Sept after 36.9 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
24 Sept after 36.7 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
25 Sept after 36.3 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2017
After · 22 Sept 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 · 630Every 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 25 August 2017 and 15 September 2017: 22 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 16,813 hectares (168.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (16,678 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 106, 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

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.

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. 630 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.

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.