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MacDonnell fire, 11 September 2018 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2018, 05:33 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2018 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,092 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2712th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 726 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
6,092ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
11 Sept 2018 – 17 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Sept
2018
Heat detections
220
in a single hotspot: 301 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617

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
67km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 20 Sept.

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
    6,081 ha reached on 11 Sept
    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)
9 Sept 31.6 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
10 Sept 31.3 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Sept 32.9 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Sept 30.0 °C 20 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
13 Sept 33.1 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
14 Sept 35.1 °C 7 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
15 Sept 26.1 °C 15 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
16 Sept 27.9 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
17 Sept 31.6 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Sept after 30.4 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
19 Sept after 24.3 °C 18 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
20 Sept after 20.7 °C 18 % 49 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2018
After · 24 Sept 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 · 220Every 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 September 2018 and 17 September 2018: 7 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 6,092 hectares (60.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (6,081 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 85, 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

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.