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Central Desert fire, 13 October 2018 Central Desert

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2018, 04:56 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2018 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 30,887 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 349th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 65 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
30,887ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
13 Oct 2018 – 20 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
13 Oct
2018
Heat detections
967
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
10.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct20 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021

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
64km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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
    31,472 ha reached on 13 Oct
    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)
13 Oct 32.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
14 Oct 37.5 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
15 Oct 32.9 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Oct 27.9 °C 22 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Oct 28.6 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Oct 31.1 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Oct 36.3 °C 7 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
20 Oct 28.6 °C 18 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
21 Oct after 30.4 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Oct after 35.2 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
23 Oct after 37.0 °C 6 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
24 Oct after 36.8 °C 5 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Oct after 38.9 °C 7 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
26 Oct after 38.4 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
27 Oct after 32.3 °C 25 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
28 Oct after 33.7 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 51
29 Oct after 30.6 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 62
30 Oct after 36.3 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
31 Oct after 36.5 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Nov after 37.9 °C 15 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
2 Nov after 36.7 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very extreme 73

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Oct 2018
After · 27 Oct 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 · 967Every 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 13 October 2018 and 20 October 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 30,887 hectares (308.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (31,472 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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.