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MacDonnell fire, 30 March 2018 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 3 Apr 2018, 04:23 UTC

The fire started on 30 March 2018 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,032 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2747th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 738 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,032ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
30 Mar 2018 – 3 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Mar
2018
Heat detections
228
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Mar3 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

30123

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
41km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days 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
    6,131 ha reached on 29 Mar
    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)
30 Mar 32.8 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Mar 33.7 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Apr 35.2 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Apr 33.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Apr 31.0 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Apr after 30.7 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Apr after 31.6 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Apr after 31.8 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
7 Apr after 32.3 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Apr after 33.6 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
9 Apr after 33.8 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Apr after 33.5 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
11 Apr after 32.9 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm Very extreme 71
12 Apr after 30.0 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Apr after 31.2 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Mar 2018
After · 10 Apr 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 · 228Every 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 30 March 2018 and 3 April 2018: 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 6,032 hectares (60.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (6,131 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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
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.