Cobar fire, December 2021 Cobar
The fire started on 21 December 2021 in Cobar, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,769 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 47th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 120 in Australia in 2021, of 460.
- Burnt area
- 13,769ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 21 Dec 2021 – 29 Dec 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 21 Dec
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 738
- in a single hotspot: 200 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 11.7GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 5 Jan.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Cobar where it started13,923 ha reached on 21 Dec0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Dec | 34.4 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Dec | 35.7 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 23 Dec | 36.1 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Dec | 35.5 °C | 11 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 25 Dec | 36.9 °C | 15 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 26 Dec | 33.5 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Dec | 32.2 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 28 Dec | 29.0 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 2.5 mm | Low 10 |
| 29 Dec | 30.3 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 30 Dec after | 32.4 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Dec after | 35.2 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Jan after | 36.4 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Jan after | 36.8 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Jan after | 39.4 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Jan after | 36.8 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 5 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 2.9 mm | Moderate 19 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 738Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cobar fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 December 2021 and 29 December 2021: 9 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 13,769 hectares (137.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cobar (13,923 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very high.
- 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
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.