How long did the Lockhart River fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 November 2016 to 24 December 2016 (48 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 November 2016 to 24 December 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 107,253 hectares (1,072.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (78,426 ha, 0.7 %); Lockhart River (29,379 ha, 8.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.

AU · Australia · 7 Nov 2016 – 24 Dec 2016

Lockhart River fire, 7 November 2016 Cook, Lockhart River

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2016, 15:53 UTC

The fire started on 7 November 2016 in Lockhart River, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 48 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 107,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 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.

This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.

Use this data

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Suggestions: Lockhart River · 2018 Lockhart River · 2019 Cook · 2023 Cook · 2026

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Fire page data · version 2026-10-25

matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel

When copying, the sentence is

Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.

Burned area

satellite only

107,253ha

Union of 3 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus)
Date: 7 Nov 2016 – 24 Dec 2016

+ cross-check

No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.

in my selection

Duration by satellite

satellite only

48days

7 Nov 2016 to 24 Dec 2016: first and last day with fire on the page.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date: last detection: 24 Dec 2016, 15:53 UTC

+ cross-check

Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

in my selection

Start

satellite only

7 Nov 2016

First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date: 7 Nov 2016

+ cross-check

No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.

in my selection

Hotspots

satellite only

5,127

VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 451 MW.

Source: NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
Date: 7 Nov 2016 – 24 Dec 2016

+ cross-check

There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.

in my selection

The worst day

satellite only

5,347MW

Total radiative power on 25 November 2016; hotspots that day: 216.

Source: NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
Date: 25 Nov 2016

+ cross-check

Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.

in my selection

Danger at the start

model

35.4FWI · high

Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 45.

Source: WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
Date: 7 Nov 2016, local noon
Model: ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com

+ cross-check

This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings

in my selection

Weather during the fire

model

34.8°C · 41% RH

High of 34.8 °C and minimum humidity of 41% on 14 November 2016; gusts of 58 km/h on 18 November 2016.

Source: weather model at the fire’s grid cell
Date: 7 Nov 2016 – 24 Dec 2016
Model: ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com

+ cross-check

These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.

in my selection

Versioned permanent link

https://worldfires.org/en/fire/lockhart-river-2016-11-2?v=2026-10-25

A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.

Citation

A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives

In another language

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CSV for this fire lockhart-river-2016-11-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots

fecha	focos_viirs	frp_mw	tmax_c	tmin_c	hr_min_pct	viento_max_kmh	racha_max_kmh	precip_mm	fwi	clase_fwi	dentro_del_incendio
2016-11-07	116	463	33.3	21.2	36	14.1	32.8	0	35.4	alto	1
2016-11-08	112	1,132	33.4	21.5	36	14.9	36	0.2	28.7	alto	1
2016-11-09	14	27	33	21.5	43	14.5	36	0	35.5	alto	1
2016-11-10	62	285	33.8	21.5	41	14.1	32.8	0	36.4	alto	1
2016-11-11	133	864	33.6	20.6	42	14.2	34.9	0	35	alto	1
2016-11-12	77	642	34.5	20.7	37	14.8	35.6	0.1	31.8	alto	1
2016-11-13	89	637	34.3	22.3	36	12.4	30.6	0.4	31.6	alto	1
2016-11-14	55	361	34.8	22.5	41	12	32.8	2.1	28.4	alto	1
2016-11-15	1	4	32.7	23.2	50	16.6	44.6	2.3	22.3	alto	1
2016-11-16	185	1,108	32.3	24.4	38	21.7	52.9	0	32	alto	1
2016-11-17	352	3,679	31.7	22.9	37	21.3	53.3	0	47	muy_alto	1
2016-11-18	333	3,023	31	22.9	43	23.1	57.6	1.7	50.7	extremo	1
2016-11-19	306	2,712	31.4	22.9	40	17.5	45.7	0	29.8	alto	1
2016-11-20	99	982	31.4	22.8	38	16	42.5	0.1	36.5	alto	1
2016-11-21	93	566	31.8	22.2	41	17.7	44.6	0.3	39.7	muy_alto	1
2016-11-22	105	325	31.1	22.1	45	17.7	42.8	0.3	38.5	muy_alto	1
2016-11-23	119	453	32.3	21.3	40	16.4	44.3	0	39.5	muy_alto	1
2016-11-24	237	2,727	33.5	21	38	14.1	42.5	0	38.8	muy_alto	1
2016-11-25	216	5,347	33.7	21	33	17.1	40	0	35.9	alto	1
2016-11-26	93	669	33.2	20.7	36	18.5	42.1	0	34.6	alto	1
2016-11-27	62	117	32.5	22.3	43	12.9	36	0.1	37.9	alto	1
2016-11-28	170	737	32.5	22.7	39	15.7	37.1	0	37.8	alto	1
2016-11-29	56	771	32.8	21.7	44	12.6	35.3	3.1	35.3	alto	1
2016-11-30	0	0	32.9	22.7	41	12.2	31.3	9.6	7	bajo	1
2016-12-01	25	134	33.4	21.2	40	15	40	0.5	22.5	alto	1
2016-12-02	86	1,213	33.2	19.6	34	16.6	43.2	0	36.8	alto	1
2016-12-03	254	2,982	32.5	20	35	19.3	46.8	0	40.9	muy_alto	1
2016-12-04	162	1,300	30.6	23.1	48	19.6	46.4	0	40.5	muy_alto	1
2016-12-05	121	474	30.6	23.9	54	21	48.6	0.3	37.1	alto	1
2016-12-06	103	795	32	22.9	41	18.6	48.2	0	36.7	alto	1
2016-12-07	186	1,329	32.6	21.4	35	16.6	38.9	0	34.4	alto	1
2016-12-08	120	860	32	22.9	46	18.7	43.9	0.5	39.7	muy_alto	1
2016-12-09	248	2,156	32.4	22.9	42	14.8	39.2	0	35.7	alto	1
2016-12-10	145	1,085	32.6	23.4	44	17.3	41.8	0.1	35.2	alto	1
2016-12-11	111	1,075	32.9	22.7	42	20.4	49	0.1	39.7	muy_alto	1
2016-12-12	82	725	32.7	22.5	40	16.2	43.2	0.1	37.9	alto	1
2016-12-13	0	0	30.6	23.8	53	17.2	44.6	1.9	37.5	alto	1
2016-12-14	12	41	33.2	22.8	44	14	37.8	0.5	22.7	alto	1
2016-12-15	32	354	32.6	23.8	50	12.2	37.8	2.9	16.8	moderado	1
2016-12-16	25	204	33.9	24.2	43	12	29.9	0	20.7	moderado	1
2016-12-17	33	335	33.9	23	40	11.8	30.6	0.2	24.6	alto	1
2016-12-18	39	270	33.6	23.3	48	15.2	35.3	1.1	21.7	alto	1
2016-12-19	70	139	34.4	23.7	37	15.6	36.4	0	32.1	alto	1
2016-12-20	54	582	31.9	23.1	49	17.2	44.3	0.7	37.6	alto	1
2016-12-21	40	384	31.5	22.7	50	20.1	43.9	1.1	28.7	alto	1
2016-12-22	12	93	32.1	22.9	47	14.8	38.9	1	26.4	alto	1
2016-12-23	28	95	31.2	22.7	53	17.2	46.4	2	25.7	alto	1
2016-12-24	54	350	33.1	23.2	42	15.9	41.4	0.3	30.8	alto	1
2016-12-25	0	0	31.7	24.4	54	16.8	39.2	1	31.3	alto	0

It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.

Live widget for your story

It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.

Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology

Burnt area: 107,253ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 48days; 7 Nov 2016 – 24 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 7 Nov; 2016
Heat detections: 5,127; in a single hotspot: 451 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 970MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Nov24 Dec

Play back 24 Dec 2016

How it evolved, day by day

7 Nov 17 Nov 25 Nov 8 Dec 19 Dec

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

58km/h · peak gust

33%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 25 Dec.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 68% of the area of London (1,073 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Cook

78,426 ha

0.7 %
Lockhart River where it started

29,379 ha

8.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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 Nov	33.3 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
8 Nov	33.4 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	High 29
9 Nov	33.0 °C	43 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Nov	33.8 °C	41 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Nov	33.6 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
12 Nov	34.5 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
13 Nov	34.3 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.4 mm	High 32
14 Nov	34.8 °C	41 %	33 km/h	2.1 mm	High 28
15 Nov	32.7 °C	50 %	45 km/h	2.3 mm	High 22
16 Nov	32.3 °C	38 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Nov	31.7 °C	37 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
18 Nov	31.0 °C	43 %	58 km/h	1.7 mm	Extreme 51
19 Nov	31.4 °C	40 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Nov	31.4 °C	38 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
21 Nov	31.8 °C	41 %	45 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 40
22 Nov	31.1 °C	45 %	43 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 38
23 Nov	32.3 °C	40 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Nov	33.5 °C	38 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
25 Nov	33.7 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Nov	33.2 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Nov	32.5 °C	43 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
28 Nov	32.5 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
29 Nov	32.8 °C	44 %	35 km/h	3.1 mm	High 35
30 Nov	32.9 °C	41 %	31 km/h	9.6 mm	Low 7
1 Dec	33.4 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.5 mm	High 22
2 Dec	33.2 °C	34 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
3 Dec	32.5 °C	35 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Dec	30.6 °C	48 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Dec	30.6 °C	54 %	49 km/h	0.3 mm	High 37
6 Dec	32.0 °C	41 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Dec	32.6 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Dec	32.0 °C	46 %	44 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 40
9 Dec	32.4 °C	42 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Dec	32.6 °C	44 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
11 Dec	32.9 °C	42 %	49 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 40
12 Dec	32.7 °C	40 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
13 Dec	30.6 °C	53 %	45 km/h	1.9 mm	High 38
14 Dec	33.2 °C	44 %	38 km/h	0.5 mm	High 23
15 Dec	32.6 °C	50 %	38 km/h	2.9 mm	Moderate 17
16 Dec	33.9 °C	43 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
17 Dec	33.9 °C	40 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	High 25
18 Dec	33.6 °C	48 %	35 km/h	1.1 mm	High 22
19 Dec	34.4 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Dec	31.9 °C	49 %	44 km/h	0.7 mm	High 38
21 Dec	31.5 °C	50 %	44 km/h	1.1 mm	High 29
22 Dec	32.1 °C	47 %	39 km/h	1.0 mm	High 26
23 Dec	31.2 °C	53 %	46 km/h	2.0 mm	High 26
24 Dec	33.1 °C	42 %	41 km/h	0.3 mm	High 31
25 Dec after	31.7 °C	54 %	39 km/h	1.0 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Oct 2016

After · 31 Dec 2016

Before After

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 · 5,127Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lockhart River fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 November 2016 to 24 December 2016 (48 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 November 2016 to 24 December 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 107,253 hectares (1,072.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (78,426 ha, 0.7 %); Lockhart River (29,379 ha, 8.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Start date: 10 November 2016 → 7 November 2016.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 November 2016 to 24 December 2016. 5,127 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.

Use this data

Burned area

Duration by satellite

Start

Hotspots

The worst day

Danger at the start

Weather during the fire

What was saved on 25 October 2026

Versioned permanent link

Citation

A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives

CSV for this fire lockhart-river-2016-11-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots

Live widget for your story

Where it burned

How it evolved, day by day

The weather it burned in

This area had burned before

How big is it?

What happened to each town

The weather day by day

Before and after, from space

Other fires nearby

Frequently asked questions

Where to verify it

Does something look wrong on this page?

Where this data comes from