Coomalie fire, June 2022 Coomalie, Victoria Daly, Unincorporated NT
The fire started on 11 June 2022 in Coomalie, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,663 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 450th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3503 with a page). Number 39 in Australia in 2022, of 566.
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- Burnt area
- 25,663ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 11 Jun 2022 – 23 Jun 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- local government areas
- Started on
- 11 Jun
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 817
- in a single hotspot: 236 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 384MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 29 Jun.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,371 ha in 2016, 7,912 ha in 2017, 20,184 ha in 2018, 10,227 ha in 2019, 19,186 ha in 2020, 10,435 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 25,663 ha that had burned before.
- 7,277 ha Coomalie fire, July 2020 23,886 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,962 ha Coomalie fire, May 2018 9,590 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,792 ha Unincorporated NT fire, May 2018 10,328 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,214 ha Coomalie fire, September 2019 5,457 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,459 ha Coomalie fire, August 2019 10,137 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,031 ha Victoria Daly fire, June 2016 10,253 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 151 ha Victoria Daly fire, August 2020 27,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 35 ha Unincorporated NT fire, July 2016 29,738 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Coomalie where it started17,430 ha reached on 10 Jun8.4 %
-
7,884 ha reached on 11 Jun0.0 %
-
422 ha reached on 12 Jun0.0 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.26 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Jun | 33.9 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 1.9 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 6 Jun | 34.8 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Jun | 34.8 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Jun | 32.7 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 Jun | 30.7 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Jun | 28.9 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Jun | 28.5 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Jun | 29.8 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Jun | 30.2 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Jun | 31.3 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Jun | 32.4 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Jun | 32.0 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Jun | 32.1 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Jun | 32.4 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Jun | 32.5 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Jun | 32.3 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Jun | 31.8 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Jun | 31.1 °C | 25 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Jun | 30.7 °C | 25 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Jun after | 30.8 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Jun after | 31.2 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Jun after | 30.6 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Jun after | 28.3 °C | 35 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Jun after | 26.8 °C | 33 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Jun after | 23.0 °C | 49 % | 41 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 15 |
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 · 817Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 23,886 haCoomalieJuly 2020 · 19 days · 9 km away
- 33,864 haCoomalieJuly 2026 · 22 days · 13 km away
- 27,639 haVictoria Daly27 August 2020 · 6 days · 16 km away
- 20,992 haUnincorporated NT12 June 2025 · 11 days · 21 km away
- 29,738 haUnincorporated NT14 July 2016 · 22 days · 23 km away
- 20,567 haUnincorporated NT20 August 2026 · 12 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Coomalie fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 June 2022 and 23 June 2022: 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 25,663 hectares (256.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Coomalie (17,430 ha, 8.4 %); Victoria Daly (7,884 ha, 0.0 %); Unincorporated NT (422 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 817 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.
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.