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Coomalie fire, June 2016 Coomalie

Out · last detection 6 Jul 2016, 04:53 UTC

The fire started on 24 June 2016 in Coomalie, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,001 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1667th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 186 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
9,001ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
24 Jun 2016 – 6 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
24 Jun
2016
Heat detections
302
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jun6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

242527282930123456

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Coomalie where it started
    9,054 ha reached on 22 Jun
    4.4 %

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)
17 Jun 33.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Jun 32.9 °C 40 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Jun 32.5 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jun 32.0 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jun 31.4 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jun 31.9 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jun 32.9 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jun 34.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jun 33.7 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jun 33.0 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jun 33.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jun 32.7 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jun 32.1 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jun 32.4 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jul 31.9 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Jul 31.3 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Jul 31.0 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Jul 32.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Jul 33.0 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Jul 33.0 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jul after 30.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Jul after 31.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jul after 32.9 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jul after 33.2 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Jul after 32.6 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jul after 31.2 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
13 Jul after 27.4 °C 43 % 52 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
14 Jul after 27.9 °C 38 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jul after 26.9 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul after 27.2 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jun 2016
After · 13 Jul 2016

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 · 302Every 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 Coomalie fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 June 2016 and 6 July 2016: 13 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 9,001 hectares (90.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Coomalie (9,054 ha, 4.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
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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.

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.