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MacDonnell fire, March 2019 MacDonnell, Ngaanyatjarraku

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2019, 16:02 UTC

The fire started on 2 March 2019 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,140 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2223th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 544 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
7,140ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
2 Mar 2019 – 9 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
2 Mar
2019
Heat detections
274
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
72
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Mar9 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

23456789

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
54km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 126 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    5,390 ha reached on 2 Mar
    0.0 %
  2. Ngaanyatjarraku
    1,794 ha reached on 3 Mar
    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)
2 Mar 39.3 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
3 Mar 38.9 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
4 Mar 39.0 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
5 Mar 38.8 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
6 Mar 36.6 °C 16 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
7 Mar 38.3 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
8 Mar 40.1 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
9 Mar 40.8 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
10 Mar after 41.4 °C 10 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
11 Mar after 42.1 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
12 Mar after 40.8 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
13 Mar after 39.2 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
14 Mar after 36.8 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
15 Mar after 35.1 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
16 Mar after 35.0 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Mar after 36.0 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
18 Mar after 37.1 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
19 Mar after 37.5 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Feb 2019
After · 16 Mar 2019

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 · 274Every 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 2 March 2019 and 9 March 2019: 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 7,140 hectares (71.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: MacDonnell (5,390 ha, 0.0 %); Ngaanyatjarraku (1,794 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 80, 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.