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Esperance fire, November 2021 Esperance

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2021, 06:28 UTC

The fire started on 29 November 2021 in Esperance, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,278 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1346th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 225 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
8,278ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
29 Nov 2021 – 11 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
29 Nov
2021
Heat detections
377
in a single hotspot: 216 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Dec 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Nov11 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

29301234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
56km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Esperance where it started
    8,223 ha reached on 29 Nov
    0.2 %

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)
29 Nov 32.9 °C 20 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Nov 22.7 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
1 Dec 26.8 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
2 Dec 26.4 °C 34 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Dec 24.8 °C 43 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
4 Dec 24.0 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
5 Dec 28.6 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Dec 26.1 °C 33 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
7 Dec 23.2 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Dec 24.7 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Dec 27.6 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Dec 35.0 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Dec 28.8 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Dec after 23.3 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Dec after 24.5 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Dec after 30.2 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Dec after 27.5 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Dec after 38.1 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.5 mm High 37
17 Dec after 28.9 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Dec after 27.9 °C 22 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Dec after 26.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Dec after 30.7 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Dec after 30.5 °C 29 % 36 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 · 22 Nov 2021
After · 18 Dec 2021

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 · 377Every 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 29 November 2021 and 11 December 2021: 13 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 8,278 hectares (82.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Esperance (8,223 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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

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.

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.