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Central Desert fire, 5 June 2018 Central Desert

Out · last detection 11 Jun 2018, 04:31 UTC

The fire started on 5 June 2018 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,141 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1161th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 293 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
12,141ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
5 Jun 2018 – 11 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Jun
2018
Heat detections
515
in a single hotspot: 343 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
10.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Jun 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jun11 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

567891011

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
48km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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
    12,019 ha reached on 5 Jun
    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)
5 Jun 25.4 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
6 Jun 27.3 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Jun 29.1 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Jun 30.5 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jun 31.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Jun 32.6 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jun 33.4 °C 17 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Jun after 34.2 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Jun after 32.9 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Jun after 30.1 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Jun after 27.0 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jun after 27.1 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Jun after 24.5 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Jun after 23.2 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
19 Jun after 25.5 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Jun after 26.8 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Jun after 24.4 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 May 2018
After · 18 Jun 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 · 515Every 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 5 June 2018 and 11 June 2018: 7 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 12,141 hectares (121.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (12,019 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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
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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.

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.