Esperance fire, 23 February 2019 Esperance
The fire started on 23 February 2019 in Esperance, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,754 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 216th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 115 in Australia in 2019, of 802.
- Burnt area
- 26,754ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 23 Feb 2019 – 4 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 23 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 1,140
- in a single hotspot: 803 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 77.2GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.7 mm on 21 Mar.
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 started26,678 ha reached on 23 Feb0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Feb | 33.8 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Feb | 28.7 °C | 37 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Feb | 28.4 °C | 40 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Feb | 34.3 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Feb | 40.7 °C | 18 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 28 Feb | 39.6 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Mar | 25.1 °C | 40 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Mar | 25.5 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Mar | 28.4 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Mar | 30.2 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Mar after | 19.7 °C | 55 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 6 Mar after | 23.2 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Mar after | 29.2 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Mar after | 29.2 °C | 43 % | 32 km/h | 1.3 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 9 Mar after | 29.6 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Mar after | 25.1 °C | 63 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 11 Mar after | 26.3 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 3.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 12 Mar after | 27.0 °C | 43 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Mar after | 29.7 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Mar after | 25.4 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 15 Mar after | 30.7 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Mar after | 28.5 °C | 51 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
| 17 Mar after | 29.4 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Mar after | 28.2 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Mar after | 29.6 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Mar after | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Mar after | 30.5 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 6.7 mm | Low 6 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 1,140Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Esperance fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 February 2019 and 4 March 2019: 10 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 26,754 hectares (267.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Esperance (26,678 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 54 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
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.