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Litchfield fire, August 2016 Litchfield

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2016, 04:15 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Litchfield, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,125 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1885th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 207 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
8,125ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
8 Aug 2016 – 25 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
8 Aug
2016
Heat detections
250
in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

910111213141516171820212225

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
49km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Litchfield where it started
    8,180 ha reached on 9 Aug
    2.8 %

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)
7 Aug 31.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 31.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Aug 33.3 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Aug 33.6 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Aug 34.4 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 34.5 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug 34.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug 34.5 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug 34.1 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Aug 34.6 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Aug 33.6 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 33.0 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Aug 29.5 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Aug 34.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug 33.9 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Aug 33.3 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug 33.3 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 34.5 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Aug 35.8 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Aug after 34.2 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug after 33.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
28 Aug after 33.9 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug after 34.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Aug after 34.3 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
31 Aug after 35.6 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Sept after 33.8 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Sept after 33.1 °C 49 % 25 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
3 Sept after 32.8 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 20
4 Sept after 33.2 °C 40 % 40 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2016
After · 1 Sept 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 · 250Every 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 Litchfield fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 August 2016 and 25 August 2016: 18 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 8,125 hectares (81.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Litchfield (8,180 ha, 2.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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
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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.