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Esperance fire, 25 January 2019 Esperance

Out · last detection 24 Feb 2019, 05:31 UTC

The fire started on 25 January 2019 in Esperance, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 54,711 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2728 with a page). Number 53 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Esperance · 2017Esperance · 2023Esperance · 2019

Burnt area
54,711ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
25 Jan 2019 – 23 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
25 Jan
2019
Heat detections
3,065
in a single hotspot: 1,468 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
5.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jan23 Feb
24 Feb 2019

How it evolved, day by day

25 Jan 2019 · 38 MW · 6 26 Jan 2019 · 1,682 MW · 45 27 Jan 2019 · 137 MW · 6 28 Jan 2019 · 6,105 MW · 287 29 Jan 2019 · 2,982 MW · 43 30 Jan 2019 · 3,088 MW · 92 31 Jan 2019 · 2,576 MW · 127 1 Feb 2019 · 1,114 MW · 75 2 Feb 2019 · 48,002 MW · 751 3 Feb 2019 · 719 MW · 17 4 Feb 2019 · 22 MW · 3 5 Feb 2019 · 1,412 MW · 34 6 Feb 2019 · 149 MW · 8 7 Feb 2019 · 557 MW · 14 8 Feb 2019 · 424 MW · 17 9 Feb 2019 · 45 MW · 7 10 Feb 2019 · 5,814 MW · 153 11 Feb 2019 · 3,574 MW · 102 12 Feb 2019 · 2 MW · 1 13 Feb 2019 · 600 MW · 69 14 Feb 2019 · 322 MW · 41 15 Feb 2019 · 64,939 MW · 722 16 Feb 2019 · 60 MW · 8 17 Feb 2019 · 234 MW · 30 18 Feb 2019 · 129 MW · 21 19 Feb 2019 · 567 MW · 39 20 Feb 2019 · 2 MW · 2 21 Feb 2019 · 4,471 MW · 160 22 Feb 2019 · 5,363 MW · 117 23 Feb 2019 · 249 MW · 19 24 Feb 2019 · 6 MW · 1
25 Jan 30 Jan 4 Feb 9 Feb 14 Feb 15 Feb 19 Feb 24 Feb

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
68km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 5 Mar.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 330 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 35% of the area of London (547 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Esperance where it started
    54,557 ha reached on 21 Jan
    1.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
21 Jan 42.1 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jan 41.4 °C 17 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Jan 36.6 °C 23 % 63 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 54
24 Jan 28.6 °C 27 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jan 27.8 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jan 26.8 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jan 30.9 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Jan 37.3 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Jan 33.4 °C 26 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Jan 26.7 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jan 27.2 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Feb 32.0 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Feb 40.4 °C 12 % 68 km/h 0.1 mm Very extreme 72
3 Feb 24.2 °C 31 % 51 km/h 3.0 mm Moderate 13
4 Feb 20.9 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
5 Feb 26.6 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
6 Feb 32.4 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Feb 29.2 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Feb 27.4 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Feb 27.8 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Feb 33.9 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Feb 29.1 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Feb 22.5 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Feb 27.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Feb 34.3 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Feb 38.3 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Feb 29.3 °C 39 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Feb 24.8 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Feb 27.2 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Feb 30.7 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Feb 31.1 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Feb 37.8 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Feb 39.6 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Feb 38.1 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Feb after 30.8 °C 29 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Feb after 28.7 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Feb after 35.2 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Feb after 42.4 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
28 Feb after 42.8 °C 9 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
1 Mar after 26.1 °C 38 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Mar after 27.1 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Mar after 30.0 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Mar after 32.3 °C 23 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Mar after 20.8 °C 52 % 39 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jan 2019
After · 2 Mar 2019

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 · 3,065Every 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 Esperance fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 January 2019 and 23 February 2019: 30 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 54,711 hectares (547.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Esperance (54,557 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,065 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.