How long did the Dundas fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 November 2019 and 17 November 2019: 17 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 10,215 hectares (102.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Dundas (10,224 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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 · 2019-11-01 → 2019-11-17

Dundas fire, November 2019 Dundas

Out · last detection 18 Nov 2019, 05:25 UTC

The fire started on 1 November 2019 in Dundas, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,215 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 999th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 370 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area: 10,215ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 1 Nov 2019 – 17 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 1 Nov; 2019
Heat detections: 689; in a single hotspot: 196 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Energy released: 16.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 18 Nov 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Nov17 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

13456789101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

42°high

78km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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

10,224 ha reached on 30 Oct

0.1 %

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)
25 Oct	22.4 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
26 Oct	24.8 °C	30 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Oct	28.6 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
28 Oct	35.6 °C	10 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
29 Oct	24.1 °C	35 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Oct	36.2 °C	9 %	69 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 73
31 Oct	22.7 °C	27 %	78 km/h	1.1 mm	Very high 38
1 Nov	17.6 °C	31 %	66 km/h	0.3 mm	High 37
2 Nov	20.3 °C	29 %	53 km/h	0.2 mm	High 35
3 Nov	24.2 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
4 Nov	26.5 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Nov	29.9 °C	17 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
6 Nov	25.3 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
7 Nov	26.7 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 Nov	24.2 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Nov	29.1 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Nov	38.1 °C	8 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 74
11 Nov	25.1 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
12 Nov	22.6 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Nov	26.7 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Nov	33.0 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
15 Nov	31.1 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
16 Nov	34.2 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
17 Nov	42.3 °C	8 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 68
18 Nov after	34.9 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
19 Nov after	39.3 °C	11 %	71 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 82
20 Nov after	22.8 °C	31 %	74 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 54
21 Nov after	24.5 °C	16 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Nov after	27.3 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
23 Nov after	29.1 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
24 Nov after	31.6 °C	22 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
25 Nov after	25.3 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
26 Nov after	27.5 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Nov after	32.5 °C	14 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
28 Nov after	27.4 °C	27 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Oct 2019

After · 24 Nov 2019

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 · 689Every 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

Other fires nearby

7,431 haDundas19 February 2019 · 11 days · 34 km away

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dundas fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 November 2019 and 17 November 2019: 17 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 10,215 hectares (102.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Dundas (10,224 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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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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