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Central Desert fire, 11 July 2022 Central Desert

Out · last detection 19 Jul 2022, 04:25 UTC

The fire started on 11 July 2022 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,499 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3075th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 490 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Burnt area
5,499ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Jul 2022 – 18 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Jul
2022
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jul18 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
50km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 626 ha in 2017, 24 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Central Desert where it started
    5,448 ha reached on 11 Jul
    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)
11 Jul 22.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jul 23.1 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
13 Jul 22.6 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Jul 22.9 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
15 Jul 23.6 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Jul 25.8 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Jul 27.0 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Jul 28.8 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Jul after 29.4 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jul after 30.1 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Jul after 28.2 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Jul after 27.5 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jul after 29.2 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Jul after 29.6 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Jul after 31.6 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Jul after 27.9 °C 17 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
27 Jul after 25.0 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
28 Jul after 25.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jul 2022
After · 25 Jul 2022

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 · 180Every 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 11 July 2022 and 18 July 2022: 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 5,499 hectares (55.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (5,448 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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
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.