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MacDonnell fire, October 2019 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 31 Oct 2019, 17:18 UTC

The fire started on 26 October 2019 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,145 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2676th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 633 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
6,145ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
26 Oct 2019 – 31 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
26 Oct
2019
Heat detections
197
in a single hotspot: 257 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Oct31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
49km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 406 ha in 2017, 37 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    6,134 ha reached on 26 Oct
    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)
26 Oct 30.9 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
27 Oct 29.4 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
28 Oct 29.3 °C 6 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
29 Oct 30.5 °C 3 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
30 Oct 32.2 °C 4 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Oct 33.7 °C 5 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
1 Nov after 35.8 °C 5 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 88
2 Nov after 32.4 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
3 Nov after 28.3 °C 13 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
4 Nov after 27.4 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
5 Nov after 28.3 °C 6 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Nov after 31.8 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
7 Nov after 33.0 °C 6 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Nov after 31.8 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
9 Nov after 28.3 °C 10 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
10 Nov after 30.9 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Oct 2019
After · 7 Nov 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 · 197Every 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 26 October 2019 and 31 October 2019: 6 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 6,145 hectares (61.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (6,134 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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.