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Katherine fire, September 2016 Katherine, Victoria Daly

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2016, 04:39 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2016 in Katherine, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 83,250 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 78th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 8 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
83,250ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
30 Sept 2016 – 16 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
30 Sept
2016
Heat detections
2,683
in a single hotspot: 347 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
31.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

302345678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
45km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Katherine where it started
    77,290 ha reached on 30 Sept
    10 %
  2. Victoria Daly
    6,494 ha reached on 30 Sept
    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)
30 Sept 36.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
1 Oct 35.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 4.7 mm Moderate 12
2 Oct 35.3 °C 36 % 27 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 5
3 Oct 32.8 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
4 Oct 33.3 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
5 Oct 34.6 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Oct 35.4 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Oct 36.7 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Oct 36.6 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Oct 37.3 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Oct 37.8 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Oct 36.9 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Oct 37.3 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Oct 37.0 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Oct 35.9 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Oct 36.4 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Oct 36.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Oct after 37.8 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Oct after 36.5 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 38
19 Oct after 37.1 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Oct after 37.4 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Oct after 37.2 °C 31 % 40 km/h 1.8 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2016
After · 23 Oct 2016

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 · 2,683Every 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 Katherine fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 September 2016 and 16 October 2016: 17 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 83,250 hectares (832.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Katherine (77,290 ha, 10 %); Victoria Daly (6,494 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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
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.