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Laverton fire, 8 October 2018 Laverton

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2018, 17:07 UTC

The fire started on 8 October 2018 in Laverton, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,266 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 871th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 327 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
11,266ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
8 Oct 2018 – 18 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
8 Oct
2018
Heat detections
473
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Oct18 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

891011121415161718

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
79km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 26 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. Laverton where it started
    11,231 ha reached on 8 Oct
    0.1 %

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)
8 Oct 28.7 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Oct 27.1 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Oct 28.5 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Oct 33.3 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Oct 33.8 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Oct 34.3 °C 12 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Oct 32.4 °C 14 % 79 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
15 Oct 25.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Oct 26.6 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Oct 30.1 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Oct 37.4 °C 9 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
19 Oct after 27.4 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
20 Oct after 28.6 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Oct after 35.9 °C 5 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Oct after 34.5 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
23 Oct after 31.5 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 Oct after 37.9 °C 6 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
25 Oct after 37.4 °C 11 % 66 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 67
26 Oct after 29.0 °C 33 % 48 km/h 4.1 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Oct 2018
After · 25 Oct 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 · 473Every 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 Laverton fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 October 2018 and 18 October 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 11,266 hectares (112.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Laverton (11,231 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 79 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 83, 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.

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.