How long did the MacDonnell fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 October 2023 and 31 October 2023: 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 18,954 hectares (189.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered MacDonnell (18,926 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 88, 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.

AU · Australia · 2023-10-24 → 2023-10-31

MacDonnell fire, 24 October 2023 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 31 Oct 2023, 15:44 UTC

The fire started on 24 October 2023 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,954 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 657th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 295 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area: 18,954ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 24 Oct 2023 – 31 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 24 Oct; 2023
Heat detections: 736; in a single hotspot: 287 MW
Danger at start: 62; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 8.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 31 Oct 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Oct31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2425262728293031

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

57km/h · peak gust

3%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 8 Nov.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 561 ha in 2017, 355 ha in 2019, 33 ha in 2022.

561 ha MacDonnell fire, August 2017 12,003 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

MacDonnell where it started

18,926 ha reached on 24 Oct

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)
24 Oct	34.3 °C	16 %	49 km/h	0.7 mm	Extreme 62
25 Oct	28.7 °C	18 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
26 Oct	28.3 °C	9 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
27 Oct	31.1 °C	6 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
28 Oct	33.2 °C	3 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
29 Oct	34.9 °C	4 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
30 Oct	38.4 °C	4 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 70
31 Oct	37.1 °C	7 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 88
1 Nov after	36.2 °C	13 %	50 km/h	0.5 mm	Very extreme 75
2 Nov after	35.5 °C	17 %	48 km/h	0.5 mm	Extreme 68
3 Nov after	35.9 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
4 Nov after	33.9 °C	14 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
5 Nov after	35.6 °C	9 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
6 Nov after	36.4 °C	8 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
7 Nov after	38.2 °C	8 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
8 Nov after	35.5 °C	16 %	42 km/h	1.6 mm	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Oct 2023

After · 7 Nov 2023

Before After

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 30 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 82 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak82 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM10117 µg/m³

Optical depth2.34

WHO 15

22232425262728293031123

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 · 736Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the MacDonnell fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 October 2023 and 31 October 2023: 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 18,954 hectares (189.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered MacDonnell (18,926 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 88, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned