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MacDonnell fire, 12 September 2021 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2021, 05:02 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2021 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,128 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2692th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 345 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
6,128ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
12 Sept 2021 – 16 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
12 Sept
2021
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
74
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
60km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 668 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    6,100 ha reached on 12 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)
8 Sept 27.4 °C 7 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
9 Sept 29.4 °C 5 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
10 Sept 29.9 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Sept 30.8 °C 6 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Sept 32.2 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Sept 32.1 °C 12 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
14 Sept 33.6 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
15 Sept 35.6 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
16 Sept 36.0 °C 12 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
17 Sept after 34.1 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Sept after 29.7 °C 26 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Sept after 30.4 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Sept after 31.1 °C 19 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
21 Sept after 25.4 °C 8 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
22 Sept after 25.6 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
23 Sept after 26.6 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
24 Sept after 29.2 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Sept after 31.8 °C 6 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
26 Sept after 33.6 °C 6 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2021
After · 23 Sept 2021

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 · 222Every 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 September 2021 and 16 September 2021: 5 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 6,128 hectares (61.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (6,100 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 83, 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.