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Dundas fire, 29 December 2019 Esperance, Dundas

Out · last detection 13 Jan 2020, 17:32 UTC

The fire started on 29 December 2019 in Dundas, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 77,546 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 37th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 35 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
77,546ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
29 Dec 2019 – 13 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
29 Dec
2019
Heat detections
6,364
in a single hotspot: 687 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
152.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Dec13 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234567810111213

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
64km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 16 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. Esperance
    54,882 ha reached on 1 Jan
    1.2 %
  2. Dundas where it started
    22,431 ha reached on 29 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
29 Dec 39.5 °C 9 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Dec 26.6 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Dec 30.1 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Jan 37.7 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Jan 32.9 °C 24 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Jan 22.7 °C 26 % 60 km/h 0.6 mm High 35
4 Jan 25.3 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jan 30.7 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Jan 35.6 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jan 38.9 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Jan 40.6 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Jan 26.8 °C 39 % 64 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 18
10 Jan 27.6 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Jan 29.2 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Jan 33.9 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jan 34.0 °C 27 % 54 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
14 Jan after 35.8 °C 23 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jan after 25.1 °C 55 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm High 24
16 Jan after 28.3 °C 43 % 42 km/h 3.7 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Dec 2019
After · 20 Jan 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 · 6,364Every 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 29 December 2019 and 13 January 2020: 16 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 77,546 hectares (775.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Esperance (54,882 ha, 1.2 %); Dundas (22,431 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.