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Central Desert fire, 1 October 2023 Central Desert

Out · last detection 25 Oct 2023, 04:44 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2023 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 41,828 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 233th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3519 with a page). Number 120 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Central Desert · 2021Central Desert · 2023Central Desert · 2023

Burnt area
41,828ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
1 Oct 2023 – 24 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
1 Oct
2023
Heat detections
2,183
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
851MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct24 Oct
25 Oct 2023

How it evolved, day by day

1 Oct 2023 · 15 MW · 5 2 Oct 2023 · 9 MW · 1 3 Oct 2023 · 18 MW · 4 4 Oct 2023 · 370 MW · 44 5 Oct 2023 · 529 MW · 44 6 Oct 2023 · 1,768 MW · 111 7 Oct 2023 · 688 MW · 62 8 Oct 2023 · 337 MW · 65 9 Oct 2023 · 1,266 MW · 169 10 Oct 2023 · 1,104 MW · 176 11 Oct 2023 · 1,908 MW · 221 12 Oct 2023 · 1,509 MW · 182 13 Oct 2023 · 605 MW · 101 14 Oct 2023 · 496 MW · 60 15 Oct 2023 · 538 MW · 57 16 Oct 2023 · 602 MW · 61 17 Oct 2023 · 482 MW · 98 18 Oct 2023 · 1,615 MW · 142 19 Oct 2023 · 3,726 MW · 253 20 Oct 2023 · 1,153 MW · 109 21 Oct 2023 · 1,043 MW · 87 22 Oct 2023 · 156 MW · 24 23 Oct 2023 · 748 MW · 51 24 Oct 2023 · 578 MW · 55 25 Oct 2023 · 3 MW · 1
1 Oct 5 Oct 9 Oct 13 Oct 17 Oct 19 Oct 21 Oct 25 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
55km/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

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 44 ha in 2018, 356 ha in 2021, 838 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 26% of the area of London (418 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Central Desert where it started
    42,330 ha reached on 1 Oct
    0.2 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.34 ha
Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.34 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
1 Oct 35.5 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Oct 36.2 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
3 Oct 37.4 °C 14 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
4 Oct 27.5 °C 10 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
5 Oct 27.8 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
6 Oct 28.3 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
7 Oct 28.1 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
8 Oct 29.4 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Oct 30.4 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Oct 31.2 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Oct 32.7 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Oct 35.3 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
13 Oct 32.9 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
14 Oct 30.8 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
15 Oct 31.5 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Oct 32.0 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
17 Oct 30.7 °C 8 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
18 Oct 32.5 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Oct 34.8 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Oct 36.2 °C 6 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Oct 36.1 °C 6 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Oct 34.7 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Oct 35.8 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
24 Oct 37.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
25 Oct after 31.5 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
26 Oct after 28.6 °C 10 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
27 Oct after 29.8 °C 7 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
28 Oct after 31.8 °C 5 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
29 Oct after 34.0 °C 6 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
30 Oct after 37.5 °C 5 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
31 Oct after 37.9 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Nov after 36.8 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
2 Nov after 34.1 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 52
3 Nov after 35.1 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2023
After · 31 Oct 2023

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 23 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 155 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 83: 5.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak155 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10222 µg/m³
Optical depth2.22
234567891011121314151617181920212223242526
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 · 2,183Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 October 2023 to 24 October 2023 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 October 2023 to 23 October 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 41,828 hectares (418.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (42,330 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 October 2023 → 24 October 2023.
  2. Start date: 4 October 2023 → 1 October 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 October 2023 to 23 October 2023. 2,183 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.