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Katherine fire, 15 August 2018 Katherine, Victoria Daly, Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2018, 04:26 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2018 in Katherine, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 111,224 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 43th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 7 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
111,224ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
15 Aug 2018 – 25 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
15 Aug
2018
Heat detections
3,484
in a single hotspot: 420 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
41.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
52km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 56,100 ha in 2016, 327 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Katherine where it started
    99,847 ha reached on 15 Aug
    13 %
  2. Victoria Daly
    11,672 ha reached on 20 Aug
    0.1 %
  3. Roper Gulf
    406 ha reached on 16 Aug
    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)
15 Aug 29.7 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Aug 30.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug 31.0 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Aug 31.8 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug 32.0 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Aug 29.2 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Aug 30.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Aug 31.2 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug 33.0 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug 32.4 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Aug 32.6 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Aug after 32.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Aug after 32.2 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Aug after 33.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug after 32.6 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 32.7 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug after 33.2 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Sept after 34.9 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Sept after 35.6 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Sept after 36.8 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Sept after 35.2 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2018
After · 1 Sept 2018

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 · 3,484Every 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 15 August 2018 and 25 August 2018: 11 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 111,224 hectares (1,112.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Katherine (99,847 ha, 13 %); Victoria Daly (11,672 ha, 0.1 %); Roper Gulf (406 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.

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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.