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Dungog fire, December 2019 Dungog, Singleton

Out · last detection 5 Jan 2020, 03:43 UTC

The fire started on 24 December 2019 in Dungog, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,342 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 52th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 339 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
11,342ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
24 Dec 2019 – 5 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
24 Dec
2019
Heat detections
1,176
in a single hotspot: 245 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Dec5 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

24252627282930311345

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
58km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 16 Jan.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 426 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Dungog where it started
    9,846 ha reached on 17 Dec
    4.4 %
  2. Singleton
    1,503 ha reached on 30 Dec
    0.3 %

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)
17 Dec 27.4 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
18 Dec 31.6 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Dec 37.5 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Dec 31.9 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Dec 38.9 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Dec 22.8 °C 56 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
23 Dec 24.6 °C 56 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
24 Dec 28.7 °C 47 % 44 km/h 3.0 mm Low 6
25 Dec 27.1 °C 43 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 14
26 Dec 31.4 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Dec 32.5 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Dec 34.9 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Dec 36.9 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Dec 37.2 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Dec 38.1 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Jan 35.4 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.9 mm High 31
2 Jan 28.2 °C 55 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 16
3 Jan 34.8 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Jan 40.8 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Jan 31.1 °C 32 % 58 km/h 0.8 mm High 31
6 Jan after 26.1 °C 57 % 45 km/h 1.7 mm Low 9
7 Jan after 32.1 °C 39 % 28 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 12
8 Jan after 32.3 °C 44 % 43 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 12
9 Jan after 24.9 °C 70 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
10 Jan after 36.2 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Jan after 29.1 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Jan after 23.5 °C 47 % 54 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
13 Jan after 28.6 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Jan after 30.5 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Jan after 29.5 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Jan after 25.7 °C 61 % 32 km/h 6.8 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Dec 2019
After · 12 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 · 1,176Every 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 Dungog fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 December 2019 and 5 January 2020: 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 11,342 hectares (113.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dungog (9,846 ha, 4.4 %); Singleton (1,503 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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

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.