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Dundas fire, 11 December 2017 Dundas

Out · last detection 14 Jan 2018, 05:44 UTC

The fire started on 11 December 2017 in Dundas, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 78,045 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 16 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
78,045ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
35days
11 Dec 2017 – 14 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Dec
2017
Heat detections
6,046
in a single hotspot: 469 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
101.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Dec14 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

11131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
80km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 23 Jan.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Dundas where it started
    78,360 ha reached on 11 Dec
    0.8 %

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)
11 Dec 35.3 °C 25 % 44 km/h 3.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Dec 29.6 °C 48 % 43 km/h 2.4 mm Low 7
13 Dec 24.9 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
14 Dec 26.0 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Dec 33.0 °C 25 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Dec 34.6 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm High 33
17 Dec 26.1 °C 29 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Dec 21.4 °C 27 % 80 km/h 1.3 mm High 24
19 Dec 20.9 °C 37 % 59 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 17
20 Dec 28.0 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Dec 34.2 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Dec 39.1 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Dec 28.1 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Dec 31.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Dec 35.5 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
26 Dec 34.2 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Dec 31.3 °C 26 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Dec 25.8 °C 32 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Dec 29.0 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Dec 32.2 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Dec 34.6 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Jan 33.4 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Jan 36.4 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Jan 40.9 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Jan 37.0 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Jan 40.7 °C 12 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
6 Jan 26.5 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jan 30.5 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jan 30.2 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan 29.4 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 38
10 Jan 33.4 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
11 Jan 25.6 °C 30 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Jan 28.4 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jan 33.2 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Jan 30.9 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
15 Jan after 22.6 °C 52 % 42 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 12
16 Jan after 29.0 °C 39 % 68 km/h 7.5 mm Low 8
17 Jan after 34.3 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
18 Jan after 24.1 °C 66 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
19 Jan after 29.0 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Jan after 30.4 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Jan after 33.5 °C 45 % 43 km/h 8.3 mm Low 6
22 Jan after 31.4 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
23 Jan after 32.3 °C 42 % 42 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Dec 2017
After · 21 Jan 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 · 6,046Every 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 Dundas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 December 2017 and 14 January 2018: 35 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 78,045 hectares (780.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dundas (78,360 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.

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.