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Central Desert fire, April 2018 Central Desert

Out · last detection 25 Apr 2018, 05:53 UTC

The fire started on 18 April 2018 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,445 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2528th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 677 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
6,445ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
18 Apr 2018 – 25 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
18 Apr
2018
Heat detections
278
in a single hotspot: 310 MW
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
11.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Apr25 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
50km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 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
    6,405 ha reached on 18 Apr
    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)
18 Apr 36.4 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
19 Apr 36.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Apr 37.4 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
21 Apr 37.8 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
22 Apr 36.7 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
23 Apr 35.5 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
24 Apr 35.0 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
25 Apr 35.0 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
26 Apr after 35.2 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
27 Apr after 35.0 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
28 Apr after 33.5 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
29 Apr after 31.3 °C 9 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
30 Apr after 31.8 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
1 May after 32.5 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 May after 33.9 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 May after 35.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 May after 32.9 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
5 May after 29.7 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Apr 2018
After · 2 May 2018

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 · 278Every 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 18 April 2018 and 25 April 2018: 8 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 6,445 hectares (64.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (6,405 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 50 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

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.