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MacDonnell fire, 2 March 2023 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 16 Mar 2023, 15:39 UTC

The fire started on 2 March 2023 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,868 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 778th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 334 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
16,868ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
2 Mar 2023 – 16 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
2 Mar
2023
Heat detections
729
in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Mar 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Mar16 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910111213141516

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
56km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 120 ha in 2019, 458 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. MacDonnell where it started
    16,830 ha reached on 26 Feb
    0.1 %

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 Feb 33.0 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Feb 34.5 °C 18 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Feb 34.9 °C 18 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Mar 33.4 °C 22 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Mar 31.3 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Mar 32.9 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Mar 34.3 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Mar 36.0 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Mar 36.0 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Mar 32.1 °C 19 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Mar 29.4 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Mar 29.1 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Mar 31.4 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Mar 34.3 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Mar 35.6 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Mar 35.2 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Mar 35.8 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Mar 37.5 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Mar 38.5 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Mar after 37.0 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Mar after 36.4 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Mar after 34.1 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Mar after 34.5 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Mar after 35.0 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Mar after 35.0 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Mar after 35.3 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Mar after 35.5 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Mar after 34.7 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Mar after 34.7 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Feb 2023
After · 23 Mar 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 15 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 116 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak116 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10166 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
2812345678910111213141516171819
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 729Every 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 2 March 2023 and 16 March 2023: 15 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 16,868 hectares (168.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered MacDonnell (16,830 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.