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Central Desert fire, 3 September 2017 Central Desert

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2017, 17:23 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2017 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,219 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2641th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 640 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
6,219ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
3 Sept 2017 – 12 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Sept
2017
Heat detections
251
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
53km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 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
    6,201 ha reached on 3 Sept
    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 Sept 34.2 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
4 Sept 32.0 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
5 Sept 31.0 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
6 Sept 32.3 °C 12 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
7 Sept 31.4 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
8 Sept 26.3 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
9 Sept 30.3 °C 7 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
10 Sept 32.2 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
11 Sept 33.2 °C 6 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
12 Sept 34.9 °C 6 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Sept after 36.2 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
14 Sept after 30.9 °C 8 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 97
15 Sept after 30.2 °C 6 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
16 Sept after 31.6 °C 5 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
17 Sept after 32.7 °C 4 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
18 Sept after 33.8 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
19 Sept after 34.8 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
20 Sept after 34.2 °C 6 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
21 Sept after 36.3 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Sept after 37.5 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Aug 2017
After · 19 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 · 251Every 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 September 2017 and 12 September 2017: 10 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 6,219 hectares (62.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (6,201 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 79, 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.

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.