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MacDonnell fire, 23 April 2018 MacDonnell

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

The fire started on 23 April 2018 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,078 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3415th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 906 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
5,078ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
23 Apr 2018 – 25 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
23 Apr
2018
Heat detections
173
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Apr25 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

232425

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
44km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 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
    5,112 ha reached on 23 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)
23 Apr 32.9 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Apr 32.6 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
25 Apr 31.0 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 57
26 Apr after 23.7 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Apr after 29.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Apr after 30.3 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Apr after 27.2 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
30 Apr after 26.6 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 May after 28.8 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 May after 30.3 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 May after 21.7 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 May after 22.7 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 May after 24.9 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Apr 2018
After · 2 May 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 · 173Every 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 23 April 2018 and 25 April 2018: 3 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 5,078 hectares (50.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (5,112 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.