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Central Desert fire, 1 August 2022 Central Desert

Out · last measured on 6 Aug 2022

The fire started on 1 August 2022 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,353 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2149th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 324 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
7,353ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
1 Aug 2022 – 6 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
1 Aug
2022
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
60km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,532 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Central Desert where it started
    7,461 ha
    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)
1 Aug 26.1 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 53
2 Aug 28.9 °C 12 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
3 Aug 31.1 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
4 Aug 26.8 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug 24.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Aug 23.3 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Aug after 24.6 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
8 Aug after 24.9 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Aug after 26.8 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Aug after 24.0 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 60
11 Aug after 17.1 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Aug after 20.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug after 22.5 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug after 24.9 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug after 26.8 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug after 25.7 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2022
After · 13 Aug 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 6 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1031 µg/m³
Optical depth0.16
456789
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Central Desert fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2022 and 6 August 2022: 6 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 7,353 hectares (73.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (7,461 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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.