Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Narrogin fire, February 2022 Narrogin, Cuballing

Out · last detection 8 Feb 2022, 17:40 UTC

The fire started on 6 February 2022 in Narrogin, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,470 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2394th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 497 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Burnt area
5,470ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
6 Feb 2022 – 7 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
6 Feb
2022
Heat detections
264
in a single hotspot: 251 MW
Danger at start
98
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Feb 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Feb7 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

678

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
78km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4 ha in 2016, 39 ha in 2017, 118 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Narrogin where it started
    5,137 ha reached on 6 Feb
    3.1 %
  2. Cuballing
    342 ha reached on 6 Feb
    0.3 %

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)
6 Feb 39.6 °C 8 % 78 km/h 0.3 mm Very extreme 98
7 Feb 24.1 °C 29 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Feb after 25.6 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Feb after 28.7 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Feb after 36.3 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Feb after 39.0 °C 25 % 56 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 58
12 Feb after 29.8 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Feb after 29.8 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Feb after 32.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Feb after 34.2 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Feb after 34.4 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Feb after 32.2 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jan 2022
After · 14 Feb 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 · 264Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Narrogin fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 February 2022 and 7 February 2022: 2 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 5,470 hectares (54.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Narrogin (5,137 ha, 3.1 %); Cuballing (342 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 98, 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.