How long did the Esperance fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 December 2017 and 14 January 2018: 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 24,195 hectares (242.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Esperance (24,183 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 75 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

AU · Australia · 2017-12-23 → 2018-01-14

Esperance fire, 23 December 2017 Esperance

Out · last detection 14 Jan 2018, 05:43 UTC

The fire started on 23 December 2017 in Esperance, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 24,195 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 250th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 76 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area: 24,195ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 23 Dec 2017 – 14 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 23 Dec; 2017
Heat detections: 1,317; in a single hotspot: 380 MW
Danger at start: 32; High · FWI index
Energy released: 24.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 14 Jan 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Dec14 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627293031234567891011121314

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

75km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.4 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

Esperance where it started

24,183 ha reached on 23 Dec

0.5 %

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)
22 Dec	37.1 °C	20 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
23 Dec	21.1 °C	52 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
24 Dec	24.8 °C	42 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
25 Dec	30.3 °C	35 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
26 Dec	32.5 °C	34 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
27 Dec	28.6 °C	35 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
28 Dec	23.2 °C	46 %	35 km/h	8.5 mm	Very low 2
29 Dec	25.7 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
30 Dec	27.3 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
31 Dec	30.3 °C	36 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
1 Jan	28.4 °C	40 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
2 Jan	28.7 °C	41 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
3 Jan	36.6 °C	27 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
4 Jan	35.0 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
5 Jan	38.6 °C	14 %	75 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
6 Jan	23.2 °C	36 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Jan	26.5 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
8 Jan	26.5 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
9 Jan	27.7 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
10 Jan	29.5 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
11 Jan	27.1 °C	33 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Jan	26.8 °C	32 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
13 Jan	28.5 °C	38 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
14 Jan	29.1 °C	37 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
15 Jan after	22.1 °C	55 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
16 Jan after	33.9 °C	27 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Jan after	36.6 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Jan after	26.5 °C	42 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Jan after	24.4 °C	44 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
20 Jan after	28.8 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
21 Jan after	29.4 °C	52 %	28 km/h	4.8 mm	Very low 4
22 Jan after	26.2 °C	62 %	38 km/h	0.8 mm	Low 7
23 Jan after	28.9 °C	55 %	41 km/h	5.4 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Dec 2017

After · 21 Jan 2018

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 · 1,317Every 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

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Esperance fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 December 2017 and 14 January 2018: 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 24,195 hectares (242.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Esperance (24,183 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 75 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

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