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MacDonnell fire, 21 March 2022 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 29 Mar 2022, 04:24 UTC

The fire started on 21 March 2022 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,647 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1348th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 177 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Burnt area
10,647ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
21 Mar 2022 – 29 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
21 Mar
2022
Heat detections
440
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Mar29 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
51km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 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: 175 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    10,681 ha reached on 20 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)
20 Mar 38.3 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Mar 38.1 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Mar 38.5 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Mar 38.2 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
24 Mar 35.6 °C 21 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
25 Mar 34.5 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
26 Mar 35.0 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Mar 35.5 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Mar 36.6 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
29 Mar 36.0 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
30 Mar after 36.3 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
31 Mar after 32.6 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
1 Apr after 29.2 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
2 Apr after 29.0 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Apr after 31.5 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Apr after 34.4 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Apr after 36.2 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
6 Apr after 32.8 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
7 Apr after 32.3 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
8 Apr after 32.0 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Mar 2022
After · 5 Apr 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 · 440Every 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 21 March 2022 and 29 March 2022: 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 10,647 hectares (106.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (10,681 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, 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.