How long did the Esperance fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 January 2019 and 3 February 2019: 22 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 29,057 hectares (290.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Esperance (28,997 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 42.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.

AU · Australia · 2019-01-13 → 2019-02-03

Esperance fire, 13 January 2019 Esperance

Out · last detection 3 Feb 2019, 05:24 UTC

The fire started on 13 January 2019 in Esperance, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,057 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 186th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 105 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area: 29,057ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 13 Jan 2019 – 3 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 13 Jan; 2019
Heat detections: 2,029; in a single hotspot: 1,268 MW
Danger at start: 46; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 64.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 3 Feb 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jan3 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021222425262728293031123

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

The weather it burned in

43°high

72km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2017.

48 ha Esperance fire, December 2017 26,089 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Esperance where it started

28,997 ha reached on 13 Jan

0.6 %

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)
13 Jan	42.6 °C	18 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
14 Jan	25.8 °C	48 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
15 Jan	23.6 °C	49 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
16 Jan	25.5 °C	50 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
17 Jan	27.5 °C	39 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
18 Jan	25.4 °C	41 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
19 Jan	28.7 °C	36 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
20 Jan	34.6 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Jan	40.0 °C	18 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Jan	35.8 °C	35 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
23 Jan	40.3 °C	19 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
24 Jan	28.2 °C	26 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
25 Jan	26.1 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Jan	26.5 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
27 Jan	28.3 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
28 Jan	35.0 °C	15 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Jan	29.7 °C	39 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Jan	24.8 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
31 Jan	24.0 °C	41 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
1 Feb	29.2 °C	31 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
2 Feb	38.9 °C	16 %	72 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
3 Feb	21.7 °C	45 %	51 km/h	0.3 mm	High 33
4 Feb after	21.6 °C	52 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
5 Feb after	24.5 °C	47 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
6 Feb after	28.2 °C	42 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Feb after	26.1 °C	43 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 Feb after	24.3 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
9 Feb after	26.5 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
10 Feb after	31.2 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Feb after	29.6 °C	24 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Feb after	22.3 °C	41 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Feb after	24.7 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Jan 2019

After · 10 Feb 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 · 2,029Every 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 13 January 2019 and 3 February 2019: 22 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 29,057 hectares (290.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Esperance (28,997 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 42.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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

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