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MacDonnell fire, 16 April 2022 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 24 Apr 2022, 04:36 UTC

The fire started on 16 April 2022 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,075 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1061th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 130 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Burnt area
13,075ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
16 Apr 2022 – 24 Apr 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
16 Apr
2022
Heat detections
421
in a single hotspot: 258 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Apr 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Apr24 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021222324

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
46km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 3 May.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    13,070 ha reached on 16 Apr
    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)
16 Apr 36.5 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Apr 33.5 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Apr 30.3 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Apr 27.8 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Apr 28.5 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Apr 28.9 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Apr 28.6 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Apr 27.6 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Apr 28.3 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
25 Apr after 28.1 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Apr after 29.7 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Apr after 31.9 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Apr after 33.8 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Apr after 31.9 °C 25 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
30 Apr after 27.5 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 May after 24.8 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 May after 26.9 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
3 May after 24.4 °C 43 % 32 km/h 2.3 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Apr 2022
After · 1 May 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 · 421Every 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 16 April 2022 and 24 April 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 13,075 hectares (130.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (13,070 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.