How long did the Dundas fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2017 and 1 November 2017: 23 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 104,352 hectares (1,043.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Dundas (104,577 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 105 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 86, class Very 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.

AU · Australia · 2017-10-10 → 2017-11-01

Dundas fire, October 2017 Dundas

Out · last detection 1 Nov 2017, 05:31 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2017 in Dundas, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 104,352 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 17th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 12 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area: 104,352ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 10 Oct 2017 – 1 Nov 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 10 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 6,586; in a single hotspot: 868 MW
Danger at start: 80; Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 152.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Nov 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct1 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314151617181920212223252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

105km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 10 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Dundas where it started

104,577 ha reached on 10 Oct

1.1 %

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)
10 Oct	36.7 °C	8 %	98 km/h	1.4 mm	Very extreme 80
11 Oct	18.8 °C	43 %	52 km/h	0.5 mm	High 29
12 Oct	22.0 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
13 Oct	23.6 °C	40 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
14 Oct	28.7 °C	20 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
15 Oct	33.7 °C	22 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
16 Oct	39.3 °C	13 %	73 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
17 Oct	29.2 °C	23 %	49 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 46
18 Oct	24.5 °C	34 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Oct	19.3 °C	41 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
20 Oct	21.4 °C	40 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Oct	23.9 °C	36 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Oct	29.8 °C	17 %	52 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 42
23 Oct	31.4 °C	25 %	49 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 43
24 Oct	23.2 °C	48 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
25 Oct	26.4 °C	41 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
26 Oct	33.6 °C	13 %	105 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 86
27 Oct	20.6 °C	35 %	88 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 49
28 Oct	28.8 °C	18 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
29 Oct	23.6 °C	25 %	81 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 60
30 Oct	19.7 °C	35 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
31 Oct	27.8 °C	23 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Nov	27.1 °C	29 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 Nov after	20.2 °C	58 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
3 Nov after	18.7 °C	55 %	48 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 12
4 Nov after	20.4 °C	45 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
5 Nov after	18.1 °C	44 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
6 Nov after	20.3 °C	41 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Nov after	23.6 °C	34 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Nov after	26.1 °C	40 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 Nov after	29.7 °C	30 %	49 km/h	0.7 mm	High 33
10 Nov after	31.1 °C	36 %	38 km/h	1.3 mm	High 24

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Oct 2017

After · 8 Nov 2017

Before After

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 · 6,586Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dundas fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2017 and 1 November 2017: 23 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 104,352 hectares (1,043.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Dundas (104,577 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 105 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 86, class Very 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned