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Esperance fire, 3 December 2019 Esperance, Dundas

Out · last detection 7 Jan 2020, 17:45 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2019 in Esperance, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 95,329 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 23th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 28 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
95,329ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
37days
3 Dec 2019 – 8 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
3 Dec
2019
Heat detections
7,329
in a single hotspot: 794 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
150.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec8 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131415161718192021222425262930311234567

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

The weather it burned in

46°high
88km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 15 Jan.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 344 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Esperance where it started
    91,679 ha reached on 26 Nov
    2.0 %
  2. Dundas
    3,434 ha reached on 16 Dec
    0.0 %

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)
26 Nov 27.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Nov 30.8 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Nov 19.6 °C 52 % 47 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
29 Nov 20.2 °C 35 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
30 Nov 21.4 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Dec 25.5 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Dec 28.4 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Dec 34.2 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Dec 39.7 °C 11 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Dec 29.2 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Dec 34.7 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Dec 36.3 °C 16 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Dec 27.4 °C 28 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Dec 26.8 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Dec 27.3 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Dec 25.0 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Dec 27.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Dec 34.1 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Dec 39.8 °C 8 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 Dec 43.3 °C 6 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
16 Dec 39.2 °C 18 % 58 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 63
17 Dec 40.8 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 57
18 Dec 37.1 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Dec 45.9 °C 9 % 88 km/h 0.2 mm Very extreme 86
20 Dec 31.0 °C 23 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Dec 29.6 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Dec 37.6 °C 24 % 54 km/h 1.5 mm Very high 40
23 Dec 36.3 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Dec 30.8 °C 43 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
25 Dec 31.6 °C 42 % 43 km/h 4.8 mm Low 10
26 Dec 38.5 °C 25 % 45 km/h 2.3 mm High 27
27 Dec 31.5 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
28 Dec 32.9 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Dec 41.4 °C 10 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
30 Dec 27.1 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Dec 30.7 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Jan 37.3 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Jan 42.8 °C 11 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
3 Jan 23.7 °C 33 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Jan 21.7 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Jan 29.4 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jan 35.3 °C 10 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Jan 38.8 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 Jan 41.6 °C 18 % 65 km/h 4.3 mm Very high 46
9 Jan after 24.0 °C 49 % 47 km/h 10.4 mm Very low 4
10 Jan after 23.2 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
11 Jan after 25.2 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Jan after 32.3 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Jan after 28.3 °C 50 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
14 Jan after 30.8 °C 34 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Jan after 23.4 °C 66 % 43 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Nov 2019
After · 15 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 · 7,329Every 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 3 December 2019 and 8 January 2020: 37 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 95,329 hectares (953.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Esperance (91,679 ha, 2.0 %); Dundas (3,434 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 45.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 88 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 86, 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

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.

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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.