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Coomalie fire, July 2020 Victoria Daly, Unincorporated NT, Coomalie

Out · last detection 3 Aug 2020, 04:33 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2020 in Coomalie, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,886 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 481th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3503 with a page). Number 30 in Australia in 2020, of 319.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Coomalie · 2018Unincorporated NT · 2018Unincorporated NT · 2017Coomalie · 2026

Burnt area
23,886ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
12 Jul 2020 – 3 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
12 Jul
2020
Heat detections
1,044
in a single hotspot: 156 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
246MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul3 Aug
3 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

12 Jul 2020 · 44 MW · 16 13 Jul 2020 · 55 MW · 19 14 Jul 2020 · 30 MW · 6 15 Jul 2020 · 7 MW · 3 16 Jul 2020 · 5 MW · 3 17 Jul 2020 · 86 MW · 15 18 Jul 2020 · 200 MW · 16 19 Jul 2020 · 471 MW · 43 20 Jul 2020 · 442 MW · 35 21 Jul 2020 · 458 MW · 86 22 Jul 2020 · 606 MW · 138 23 Jul 2020 · 406 MW · 80 24 Jul 2020 · 506 MW · 55 25 Jul 2020 · 28 MW · 18 26 Jul 2020 · 76 MW · 34 27 Jul 2020 · 867 MW · 56 28 Jul 2020 · 229 MW · 85 29 Jul 2020 · 309 MW · 118 30 Jul 2020 · 197 MW · 80 31 Jul 2020 · 128 MW · 42 1 Aug 2020 · 362 MW · 67 2 Aug 2020 · 126 MW · 25 3 Aug 2020 · 16 MW · 4
12 Jul 16 Jul 20 Jul 24 Jul 27 Jul 28 Jul 1 Aug

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
47km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,613 ha in 2016, 8,666 ha in 2017, 18,187 ha in 2018, 6,637 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,997 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 15% of the area of London (239 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. Victoria Daly
    8,420 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.0 %
  2. Unincorporated NT
    8,375 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.4 %
  3. Coomalie where it started
    6,930 ha reached on 12 Jul
    3.4 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.43 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.43 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
12 Jul 32.8 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jul 29.7 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Jul 29.4 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jul 31.2 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Jul 31.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Jul 31.4 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Jul 32.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul 31.7 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jul 31.6 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Jul 30.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul 30.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jul 30.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul 30.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jul 31.0 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jul 30.9 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jul 29.9 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jul 29.6 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Jul 29.6 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Jul 29.2 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Jul 31.6 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Aug 31.1 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Aug 30.2 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Aug 30.4 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug after 30.4 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Aug after 31.0 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug after 30.7 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug after 31.0 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug after 32.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Aug after 32.1 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Aug after 32.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug after 32.6 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug after 32.8 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug after 33.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2020
After · 10 Aug 2020

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 · 1,044Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 July 2020 to 3 August 2020 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 July 2020 to 3 August 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 23,886 hectares (238.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Victoria Daly (8,420 ha, 0.0 %); Unincorporated NT (8,375 ha, 0.4 %); Coomalie (6,930 ha, 3.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 47 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 July 2020 to 3 August 2020. 1,044 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 2020, 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.