How long did the MacDonnell fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 April 2018 and 24 April 2018: 4 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 12,325 hectares (123.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered MacDonnell (12,412 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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.

AU · Australia · 2018-04-21 → 2018-04-24

MacDonnell fire, 21 April 2018 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 25 Apr 2018, 04:11 UTC

The fire started on 21 April 2018 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,325 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1135th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 285 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Compare with…

Suggestions: MacDonnell · 2018 MacDonnell · 2019 MacDonnell · 2018 MacDonnell · 2018

Burnt area: 12,325ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 4days; 21 Apr 2018 – 24 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 21 Apr; 2018
Heat detections: 462; in a single hotspot: 401 MW
Danger at start: 53; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 837MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Apr24 Apr

Play back 25 Apr 2018

How it evolved, day by day

21 Apr 22 Apr 23 Apr 24 Apr 25 Apr

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

46km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 345 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.8% of the area of London (123 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

MacDonnell where it started

12,412 ha reached on 20 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)
19 Apr	35.4 °C	12 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
20 Apr	34.1 °C	14 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
21 Apr	34.9 °C	15 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 72
22 Apr	34.4 °C	11 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
23 Apr	33.0 °C	14 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
24 Apr	32.6 °C	15 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
25 Apr after	31.2 °C	18 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 57
26 Apr after	23.4 °C	40 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 43
27 Apr after	29.0 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Apr after	30.2 °C	18 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
29 Apr after	27.4 °C	22 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
30 Apr after	26.6 °C	14 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
1 May after	29.0 °C	13 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
2 May after	30.4 °C	12 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
3 May after	22.1 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
4 May after	22.6 °C	21 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
5 May after	24.7 °C	22 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Apr 2018

After · 1 May 2018

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 · 462Every 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 MacDonnell fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 April 2018 and 24 April 2018: 4 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 12,325 hectares (123.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered MacDonnell (12,412 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

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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.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 462 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.

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.

Where it burned