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MacDonnell fire, 23 February 2022 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 2 Mar 2022, 04:30 UTC

The fire started on 23 February 2022 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,877 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2847th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 443 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Burnt area
5,877ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
23 Feb 2022 – 2 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
23 Feb
2022
Heat detections
219
in a single hotspot: 143 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Feb2 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272812

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
50km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 43 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    5,874 ha reached on 23 Feb
    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)
23 Feb 37.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Feb 36.2 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Feb 35.6 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Feb 36.2 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Feb 37.9 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Feb 38.1 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Mar 38.8 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Mar 39.0 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Mar after 39.2 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Mar after 38.9 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Mar after 38.3 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Mar after 35.6 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Mar after 35.9 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Mar after 33.1 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Mar after 33.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Mar after 33.8 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Mar after 35.2 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Mar after 36.5 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Feb 2022
After · 9 Mar 2022

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 · 219Every 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 23 February 2022 and 2 March 2022: 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 5,877 hectares (58.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (5,874 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.