Burned area
satellite only80,067ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 15 Sept 2023 – 5 Oct 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Central Desert fire, 15 September 2023 Central Desert, Victoria Daly
Out · last detection 5 Oct 2023, 17:10 UTC
The fire started on 15 September 2023 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 80,067 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
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.
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Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches 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 only21days
15 Sept 2023 to 5 Oct 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 5 Oct 2023, 17:10 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 only15 Sept 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 15 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 only2,956
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 278 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 15 Sept 2023 – 5 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 only6,443MW
Total radiative power on 22 September 2023; hotspots that day: 542.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 22 Sept 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
model58.2FWI · 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
- 15 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
model37.0°C · 14% RH
High of 37.0 °C and minimum humidity of 14% on 26 September 2023; gusts of 56 km/h on 4 October 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 15 Sept 2023 – 5 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
-
logLast day with fire: 4 October 2023 → 5 October 2023.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 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
- 80,067 ha
- Dates
- 15 Sept 2023 – 5 Oct 2023
- Name
- Central Desert
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/central-desert-2023-09-6?v=2026-10-26A 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-2023-09-6.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-09-15 | 69 | 134 | 32.3 | 16.3 | 19 | 23.7 | 42.1 | 0 | 58.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-16 | 30 | 173 | 32.1 | 16.6 | 17 | 25.4 | 43.2 | 0 | 60.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-17 | 27 | 543 | 32.3 | 17.1 | 19 | 21.1 | 37.8 | 0 | 55.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-18 | 23 | 75 | 33.1 | 17.1 | 15 | 19.6 | 40 | 0 | 53.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-19 | 56 | 230 | 33.3 | 17.9 | 16 | 21.2 | 42.8 | 0 | 55.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-20 | 309 | 4,682 | 34.9 | 17.5 | 15 | 20.6 | 41 | 0 | 55.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-21 | 610 | 4,554 | 35.9 | 21.9 | 16 | 21.7 | 36.7 | 0 | 57.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-22 | 542 | 6,443 | 35.7 | 21.3 | 10 | 31.4 | 54.7 | 0 | 76.1 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-23 | 367 | 2,107 | 34.5 | 18.8 | 9 | 23.3 | 43.2 | 0 | 64.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-24 | 344 | 1,995 | 35.3 | 16.5 | 6 | 26.3 | 45.4 | 0 | 73.1 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-25 | 207 | 1,057 | 36.3 | 18.2 | 12 | 19.4 | 36.7 | 0 | 63.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-26 | 106 | 630 | 37 | 19.8 | 14 | 22.2 | 38.5 | 0 | 66.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-27 | 90 | 496 | 36.3 | 20.2 | 16 | 21 | 38.5 | 0 | 62.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-28 | 53 | 397 | 35.8 | 23.5 | 16 | 26.9 | 45.4 | 0 | 70.7 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-29 | 59 | 271 | 35.2 | 20.6 | 14 | 25.8 | 45.7 | 0 | 69.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-09-30 | 14 | 74 | 35.8 | 19.3 | 15 | 19.6 | 38.5 | 0 | 60.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-01 | 9 | 65 | 36.5 | 24.1 | 19 | 23.5 | 43.9 | 0 | 63.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-02 | 18 | 209 | 36.5 | 24.4 | 21 | 14.2 | 26.6 | 0 | 49.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-10-03 | 18 | 124 | 36.3 | 26.7 | 24 | 11.9 | 22.3 | 0 | 44.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-10-04 | 3 | 6 | 37 | 24.7 | 13 | 32.4 | 56.2 | 0 | 76 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-05 | 2 | 1 | 33.4 | 22.2 | 16 | 31.1 | 54.7 | 0 | 74.2 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-10-06 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 20 | 14 | 28.6 | 49.7 | 0 | 70.6 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-07 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 18.4 | 9 | 31.1 | 53.6 | 0 | 74.9 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-08 | 0 | 0 | 33.1 | 17.3 | 10 | 28.7 | 50.4 | 0 | 71.4 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-09 | 0 | 0 | 34.3 | 18.2 | 11 | 31.8 | 52.2 | 0 | 76.8 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-10 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 19.2 | 13 | 30.1 | 52.9 | 0 | 74.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-11 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 18.9 | 10 | 26.6 | 46.1 | 0 | 70 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-12 | 0 | 0 | 37.8 | 21.8 | 11 | 28.1 | 47.5 | 0 | 72.8 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-13 | 0 | 0 | 36.9 | 23.6 | 15 | 28.1 | 46.1 | 0 | 73.2 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-14 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 20.2 | 8 | 25.2 | 44.6 | 0 | 70.4 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-10-15 | 0 | 0 | 35.6 | 18.9 | 7 | 23.1 | 42.5 | 0 | 68.2 | 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
- 80,067ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 15 Sept 2023 – 5 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 15 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 2,956
- in a single hotspot: 278 MW
- Danger at start
- 58
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.2GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
15 Sept5 Oct
5 Oct 2023
How it evolved, day by day
15 Sept
22 Sept
30 Sept
5 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
37°high
56km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,919 ha in 2016, 18,681 ha in 2017, 2,554 ha in 2021, 1,339 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,056 ha that had burned before.
- 12,438 ha Central Desert fire, September 2017 37,958 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,108 ha Victoria Daly fire, September 2017 10,529 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 246 ha Victoria Daly fire, September 2017 20,188 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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 started63,888 ha reached on 15 Sept0.2 %
-
15,587 ha reached on 17 Sept0.1 %
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 60 days without rain: 7.6 % of the area in Australia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sept | 32.3 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 16 Sept | 32.1 °C | 17 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 17 Sept | 32.3 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 18 Sept | 33.1 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Sept | 33.3 °C | 16 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 20 Sept | 34.9 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 21 Sept | 35.9 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 22 Sept | 35.7 °C | 10 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 23 Sept | 34.5 °C | 9 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 24 Sept | 35.3 °C | 6 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 25 Sept | 36.3 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 26 Sept | 37.0 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 27 Sept | 36.3 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 28 Sept | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 29 Sept | 35.2 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 30 Sept | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 1 Oct | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 2 Oct | 36.5 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 3 Oct | 36.3 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Oct | 37.0 °C | 13 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 5 Oct | 33.4 °C | 16 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 6 Oct after | 33.5 °C | 14 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 7 Oct after | 32.0 °C | 9 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 8 Oct after | 33.1 °C | 10 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 9 Oct after | 34.3 °C | 11 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 77 |
| 10 Oct after | 35.5 °C | 13 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 11 Oct after | 36.0 °C | 10 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 12 Oct after | 37.8 °C | 11 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 13 Oct after | 36.9 °C | 15 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 14 Oct after | 36.0 °C | 8 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 15 Oct after | 35.6 °C | 7 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 8 Sept 2023
After · 12 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 20 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10130 µg/m³
Optical depth0.99
WHO 15
13 Sept18 Sept23 Sept28 Sept3 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 · 2,956Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Central Desert fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 September 2023 to 5 October 2023 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 September 2023 to 4 October 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 80,067 hectares (800.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Central Desert (63,888 ha, 0.2 %); Victoria Daly (15,587 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 4 October 2023 → 5 October 2023.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 September 2023 to 4 October 2023. 2,956 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.