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MacDonnell fire, January 2018 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 19 Jan 2018, 17:05 UTC

The fire started on 11 January 2018 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,774 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2014th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 539 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
7,774ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Jan 2018 – 18 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Jan
2018
Heat detections
216
in a single hotspot: 182 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jan18 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1113141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
54km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 30 Jan.

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
    7,760 ha reached on 11 Jan
    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)
11 Jan 37.7 °C 24 % 42 km/h 1.3 mm Very high 44
12 Jan 32.8 °C 37 % 37 km/h 6.0 mm Low 9
13 Jan 31.5 °C 55 % 37 km/h 3.6 mm Low 6
14 Jan 30.4 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Jan 29.9 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jan 33.7 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jan 36.6 °C 13 % 44 km/h 1.7 mm Very high 41
18 Jan 36.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jan after 33.7 °C 28 % 42 km/h 2.9 mm Moderate 19
20 Jan after 35.3 °C 16 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jan after 38.5 °C 9 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
22 Jan after 38.8 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Jan after 39.4 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Jan after 39.0 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
25 Jan after 38.6 °C 14 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
26 Jan after 36.0 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 47
27 Jan after 35.4 °C 27 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Jan after 36.3 °C 23 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jan after 37.2 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jan after 35.9 °C 27 % 36 km/h 2.2 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jan 2018
After · 25 Jan 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 · 216Every 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 11 January 2018 and 18 January 2018: 8 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 7,774 hectares (77.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (7,760 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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.