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MacDonnell fire, 4 April 2018 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 11 Apr 2018, 05:13 UTC

The fire started on 4 April 2018 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,395 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1248th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 320 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
11,395ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
4 Apr 2018 – 11 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
4 Apr
2018
Heat detections
487
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Apr11 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

4567891011

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
42km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 476 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 445 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    11,544 ha reached on 4 Apr
    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)
4 Apr 32.2 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Apr 33.1 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Apr 33.0 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Apr 33.6 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Apr 34.8 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Apr 34.9 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Apr 34.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Apr 33.5 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
12 Apr after 32.3 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Apr after 34.0 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Apr after 28.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Apr after 29.0 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Apr after 31.3 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Apr after 30.5 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Apr after 31.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Apr after 35.1 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 Apr after 33.7 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Apr after 34.6 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Apr after 33.5 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
23 Apr after 32.2 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Mar 2018
After · 18 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 · 487Every 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 4 April 2018 and 11 April 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 11,395 hectares (114.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (11,544 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.