Burned area
satellite only43,713ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 30 Sept 2023 – 11 Oct 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Central Desert fire, 30 September 2023 Central Desert
Out · last detection 12 Oct 2023, 16:40 UTC
The fire started on 30 September 2023 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 43,713 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only12days
30 Sept 2023 to 11 Oct 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 12 Oct 2023, 16:40 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only30 Sept 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 30 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only2,021
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 292 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 30 Sept 2023 – 11 Oct 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only7,417MW
Total radiative power on 6 October 2023; hotspots that day: 433.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 6 Oct 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model69.5FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 30 Sept 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.5°C · 10% RH
High of 37.5 °C and minimum humidity of 10% on 3 October 2023; gusts of 58 km/h on 2 October 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 30 Sept 2023 – 11 Oct 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 43,713 ha
- Dates
- 30 Sept 2023 – 11 Oct 2023
- Name
- Central Desert
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/central-desert-2023-09-15?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire central-desert-2023-09-15.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-09-30 | 73 | 1,132 | 33.4 | 20.2 | 12 | 26.5 | 43.9 | 0 | 69.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-01 | 131 | 2,439 | 35.4 | 21.5 | 11 | 23.1 | 39.2 | 0 | 64.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-02 | 148 | 1,604 | 37.4 | 23.3 | 12 | 36.5 | 58.3 | 0 | 87.2 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-03 | 257 | 3,496 | 37.5 | 24.9 | 10 | 34.1 | 51.8 | 0 | 83.7 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-04 | 151 | 2,387 | 28.4 | 16.1 | 7 | 35.4 | 56.2 | 0 | 86.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-05 | 284 | 1,242 | 29 | 13.6 | 9 | 28.3 | 48.2 | 0 | 74.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-06 | 433 | 7,417 | 29.2 | 14 | 9 | 29.3 | 49.3 | 0 | 76.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-07 | 173 | 825 | 28.9 | 15.3 | 10 | 27.4 | 47.9 | 0 | 72.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-08 | 159 | 1,936 | 28.8 | 15.8 | 13 | 28.6 | 46.4 | 0 | 71.1 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-09 | 60 | 431 | 30.6 | 16.5 | 8 | 27.1 | 46.1 | 0 | 69.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-10 | 56 | 549 | 30.9 | 16.3 | 5 | 27.3 | 46.4 | 0 | 72.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-11 | 25 | 389 | 33 | 18.1 | 6 | 23.5 | 39.6 | 0 | 67.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-12 | 71 | 1,257 | 35.4 | 17.5 | 7 | 26.5 | 42.1 | 0 | 73.2 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-13 | 0 | 0 | 33.6 | 18.4 | 10 | 34.9 | 54.4 | 0 | 88.1 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-14 | 0 | 0 | 30.9 | 16.4 | 5 | 32 | 54.4 | 0 | 83.2 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-15 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 15.6 | 6 | 22.6 | 40 | 0 | 68 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-16 | 0 | 0 | 31.6 | 16.8 | 9 | 27.7 | 46.4 | 0 | 76.4 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-17 | 0 | 0 | 30.7 | 16.7 | 8 | 27.2 | 49.7 | 0 | 75.9 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-18 | 0 | 0 | 32.4 | 15.9 | 7 | 19.8 | 34.9 | 0 | 64.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-19 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 16.6 | 5 | 18.6 | 32.8 | 0 | 63.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-20 | 0 | 0 | 35.6 | 19.9 | 4 | 23.6 | 39.6 | 0 | 72.8 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-21 | 0 | 0 | 37 | 19.3 | 4 | 26.3 | 44.3 | 0 | 78.6 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-22 | 0 | 0 | 35.9 | 19.6 | 8 | 31.1 | 45.7 | 0 | 87.5 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-23 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 20.1 | 9 | 33.7 | 56.2 | 0 | 92.9 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-24 | 0 | 0 | 38.1 | 24 | 12 | 20.2 | 36.4 | 0 | 67.9 | extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 43,713ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 30 Sept 2023 – 11 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 30 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 2,021
- in a single hotspot: 292 MW
- Danger at start
- 70
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.9GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
30 Sept11 Oct
12 Oct 2023
How it evolved, day by day
30 Sept
3 Oct
6 Oct
9 Oct
12 Oct
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
58km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,564 ha in 2017, 36 ha in 2018, 76 ha in 2022.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Central Desert where it started44,291 ha reached on 30 Sept0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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)
Started with Very dry air: 28 % of the area in Australia 60 days without rain: 7.6 % of the area in Australia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Sept | 33.4 °C | 12 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 1 Oct | 35.4 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 2 Oct | 37.4 °C | 12 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 87 |
| 3 Oct | 37.5 °C | 10 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 84 |
| 4 Oct | 28.4 °C | 7 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 86 |
| 5 Oct | 29.0 °C | 9 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 6 Oct | 29.2 °C | 9 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 7 Oct | 28.9 °C | 10 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 8 Oct | 28.8 °C | 13 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 9 Oct | 30.6 °C | 8 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 10 Oct | 30.9 °C | 5 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 11 Oct | 33.0 °C | 6 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 12 Oct after | 35.4 °C | 7 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 13 Oct after | 33.6 °C | 10 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 14 Oct after | 30.9 °C | 5 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 83 |
| 15 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 6 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 16 Oct after | 31.6 °C | 9 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 17 Oct after | 30.7 °C | 8 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 18 Oct after | 32.4 °C | 7 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 19 Oct after | 34.4 °C | 5 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 20 Oct after | 35.6 °C | 4 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 21 Oct after | 37.0 °C | 4 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 79 |
| 22 Oct after | 35.9 °C | 8 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 23 Oct after | 36.4 °C | 9 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 93 |
| 24 Oct after | 38.1 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 69.5, a minimum humidity of 12% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 16.
FWI at the start
69.5
Minimum humidity
12 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Central Desert fire, 30 September 2023
43,713 ha
12 days
FWI 69.5
Min. humidity 12 %
MacDonnell fire, October 2023
8,693 ha
5 days
FWI 68.8
Min. humidity 15 %
180 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.2 mm on 2 Nov.
MacDonnell fire, July 2018
6,455 ha
2 days
FWI 74.2
Min. humidity 13 %
177 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
MacDonnell fire, November 2023
5,720 ha
2 days
FWI 68.8
Min. humidity 8 %
214 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 8.7 mm on 12 Nov.
MacDonnell fire, October 2023
5,260 ha
4 days
FWI 67.2
Min. humidity 7 %
193 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.2 mm on 2 Nov.
MacDonnell fire, November 2023
8,265 ha
6 days
FWI 64.4
Min. humidity 18 %
179 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.9 mm on 8 Nov.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 6,796 ha
- median area
- 19 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 2.2 mm
- rain at the end (median; 9 of 16 had it)
It was 6.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 12 days, against 5 days.
Only 1 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 7 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
58km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 11 Oct, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 9 of 16, with a median of 2.2 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2017.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 23 Sept 2023
After · 18 Oct 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 30 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1065 µg/m³
Optical depth1.23
WHO 15
28 Sept2 Oct6 Oct10 Oct14 Oct
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)
Detections table · 2,021Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 18,341 haCentral Desert28 August 2017 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 29,507 haCentral Desert25 September 2026 · 7 days · 25 km away
- 41,117 haCentral Desert19 September 2026 · 12 days · 34 km away
- 8,496 haCentral Desert25 December 2025 · 5 days · 39 km away
- 8,319 haCentral Desert1 August 2026 · 10 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Central Desert fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 September 2023 and 11 October 2023: 12 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 43,713 hectares (437.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Central Desert (44,291 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 88, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 6,796 ha; 19 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 1 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 7 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2,021 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.