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Coomalie fire, 28 May 2018 Victoria Daly, Coomalie

Out · last detection 6 Jun 2018, 04:26 UTC

The fire started on 28 May 2018 in Coomalie, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,590 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1539th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 409 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
9,590ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
28 May 2018 – 6 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
28 May
2018
Heat detections
366
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Jun 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 May6 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

28293031123456

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
53km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,757 ha in 2016, 596 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,855 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Victoria Daly
    8,752 ha reached on 28 May
    0.1 %
  2. Coomalie where it started
    800 ha reached on 28 May
    0.4 %

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)
26 May 33.2 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 May 32.7 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 May 32.2 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 May 32.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 May 31.8 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 May 31.6 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Jun 31.5 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jun 30.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Jun 30.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Jun 29.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Jun 28.7 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Jun 29.5 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Jun after 30.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Jun after 30.8 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Jun after 31.0 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jun after 32.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Jun after 31.8 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Jun after 32.5 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Jun after 32.0 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jun after 32.2 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jun after 31.6 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Jun after 31.4 °C 33 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jun after 29.9 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jun after 29.7 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Jun after 31.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jun after 32.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jun after 30.6 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 May 2018
After · 13 Jun 2018

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 · 366Every 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 28 May 2018 and 6 June 2018: 10 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 9,590 hectares (95.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Victoria Daly (8,752 ha, 0.1 %); Coomalie (800 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class 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

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.

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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.