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Central Desert fire, 3 October 2023 Central Desert

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2023, 05:47 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2023 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 140,811 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 24th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3518 with a page). Number 14 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Central Desert · 2018Central Desert · 2018Central Desert · 2025Central Desert · 2023

Burnt area
140,811ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
3 Oct 2023 – 26 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Oct
2023
Heat detections
6,205
in a single hotspot: 934 MW
Danger at start
75
Very extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
5.8GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct26 Oct
27 Oct 2023

How it evolved, day by day

3 Oct 2023 · 6,444 MW · 499 4 Oct 2023 · 12,397 MW · 865 5 Oct 2023 · 1,975 MW · 246 6 Oct 2023 · 2,025 MW · 254 7 Oct 2023 · 2,719 MW · 271 8 Oct 2023 · 22,284 MW · 613 9 Oct 2023 · 2,128 MW · 328 10 Oct 2023 · 6,934 MW · 393 11 Oct 2023 · 4,068 MW · 252 12 Oct 2023 · 2,615 MW · 254 13 Oct 2023 · 11,913 MW · 370 14 Oct 2023 · 12,307 MW · 605 15 Oct 2023 · 47,444 MW · 621 16 Oct 2023 · 711 MW · 164 17 Oct 2023 · 2,998 MW · 134 18 Oct 2023 · 350 MW · 43 19 Oct 2023 · 120 MW · 34 20 Oct 2023 · 519 MW · 42 21 Oct 2023 · 250 MW · 43 22 Oct 2023 · 1,124 MW · 38 23 Oct 2023 · 2,870 MW · 55 24 Oct 2023 · 398 MW · 53 25 Oct 2023 · 30 MW · 11 26 Oct 2023 · 23 MW · 8 27 Oct 2023 · 98 MW · 9
3 Oct 7 Oct 11 Oct 15 Oct 19 Oct 23 Oct 27 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

39°high
59km/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

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,055 ha in 2016, 748 ha in 2017, 6,720 ha in 2018, 4,591 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned the equivalent of 89% of the area of London (1,408 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
    141,358 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.5 %

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 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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
3 Oct 38.0 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
4 Oct 32.0 °C 12 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 86
5 Oct 30.5 °C 10 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
6 Oct 30.3 °C 11 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
7 Oct 30.0 °C 10 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
8 Oct 31.3 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
9 Oct 32.3 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
10 Oct 32.8 °C 8 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
11 Oct 34.2 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
12 Oct 36.4 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Oct 35.1 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
14 Oct 33.0 °C 9 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
15 Oct 32.9 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Oct 34.0 °C 9 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
17 Oct 33.0 °C 10 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
18 Oct 33.9 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
19 Oct 35.4 °C 6 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Oct 37.0 °C 5 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Oct 37.6 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
22 Oct 36.6 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
23 Oct 37.1 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
24 Oct 38.9 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
25 Oct 34.8 °C 13 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
26 Oct 31.2 °C 11 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
27 Oct after 32.2 °C 8 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
28 Oct after 33.7 °C 4 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
29 Oct after 35.7 °C 4 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
30 Oct after 38.7 °C 5 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
31 Oct after 39.4 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
1 Nov after 39.0 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
2 Nov after 36.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Nov after 37.1 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Nov after 36.7 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
5 Nov after 37.7 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Sept 2023
After · 2 Nov 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 27 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 168 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 67: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak168 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10239 µg/m³
Optical depth3.09
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627
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 · 6,205Every 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 3 October 2023 to 26 October 2023 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 October 2023 to 24 October 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 140,811 hectares (1,408.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Central Desert (141,358 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 86, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 24 October 2023 → 26 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; 6 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 October 2023 to 24 October 2023. 6,205 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.