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MacDonnell fire, 14 September 2017 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2017, 17:12 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2017 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,117 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2231th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 536 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
7,117ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
14 Sept 2017 – 18 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Sept
2017
Heat detections
237
in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
59km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    7,087 ha reached on 12 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)
12 Sept 33.9 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Sept 28.8 °C 20 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
14 Sept 27.8 °C 6 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
15 Sept 27.5 °C 5 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
16 Sept 29.9 °C 6 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Sept 30.4 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Sept 32.5 °C 8 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Sept after 31.9 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
20 Sept after 33.8 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
21 Sept after 35.9 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
22 Sept after 36.2 °C 6 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
23 Sept after 35.6 °C 8 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
24 Sept after 34.9 °C 10 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
25 Sept after 34.2 °C 4 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
26 Sept after 35.5 °C 11 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
27 Sept after 36.0 °C 18 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
28 Sept after 29.3 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2017
After · 25 Sept 2017

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 · 237Every 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 MacDonnell fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2017 and 18 September 2017: 5 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 7,117 hectares (71.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (7,087 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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.