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MacDonnell fire, 12 October 2018 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2018, 05:14 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2018 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,789 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 367th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 69 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
29,789ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
12 Oct 2018 – 20 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
12 Oct
2018
Heat detections
1,087
in a single hotspot: 355 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
16.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct20 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
73km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 25 Oct.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 759 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    30,026 ha reached on 12 Oct
    0.1 %

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)
5 Oct 34.7 °C 15 % 57 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 66
6 Oct 35.5 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Oct 37.1 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Oct 34.8 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 69
9 Oct 32.2 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
10 Oct 30.8 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
11 Oct 31.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
12 Oct 30.8 °C 27 % 54 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 45
13 Oct 36.4 °C 7 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
14 Oct 36.1 °C 11 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 106
15 Oct 28.4 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
16 Oct 27.5 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
17 Oct 30.1 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
18 Oct 35.1 °C 13 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
19 Oct 35.2 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
20 Oct 29.9 °C 16 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
21 Oct after 34.1 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Oct after 37.6 °C 5 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Oct after 34.9 °C 11 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 91
24 Oct after 38.7 °C 7 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
25 Oct after 38.4 °C 14 % 54 km/h 1.0 mm Very extreme 72

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2018
After · 27 Oct 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 · 1,087Every 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 12 October 2018 and 20 October 2018: 9 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 29,789 hectares (297.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (30,026 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 106, 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.