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Unincorporated NT fire, 10 July 2016 Unincorporated NT, Coomalie

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2016, 16:38 UTC

The fire started on 10 July 2016 in Unincorporated NT, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,738 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 369th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3503 with a page). Number 35 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Unincorporated NT · 2025Unincorporated NT · 2019Unincorporated NT · 2022Coomalie · 2022

Burnt area
29,738ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
10 Jul 2016 – 5 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
10 Jul
2016
Heat detections
1,071
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
281MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jul5 Aug
5 Aug 2016

How it evolved, day by day

10 Jul 2016 · 9 MW · 2 11 Jul 2016 · 98 MW · 12 14 Jul 2016 · 82 MW · 14 15 Jul 2016 · 3 MW · 4 16 Jul 2016 · 27 MW · 6 17 Jul 2016 · 19 MW · 8 18 Jul 2016 · 93 MW · 16 19 Jul 2016 · 164 MW · 32 20 Jul 2016 · 413 MW · 60 21 Jul 2016 · 661 MW · 81 22 Jul 2016 · 1,164 MW · 100 23 Jul 2016 · 390 MW · 57 24 Jul 2016 · 253 MW · 40 25 Jul 2016 · 817 MW · 85 26 Jul 2016 · 508 MW · 90 27 Jul 2016 · 664 MW · 125 28 Jul 2016 · 358 MW · 91 29 Jul 2016 · 252 MW · 80 30 Jul 2016 · 236 MW · 37 31 Jul 2016 · 529 MW · 46 1 Aug 2016 · 16 MW · 10 2 Aug 2016 · 48 MW · 10 3 Aug 2016 · 57 MW · 20 4 Aug 2016 · 88 MW · 27 5 Aug 2016 · 83 MW · 18
10 Jul 16 Jul 20 Jul 22 Jul 24 Jul 28 Jul 1 Aug 5 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
53km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 19% of the area of London (297 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Unincorporated NT where it started
    29,118 ha reached on 10 Jul
    1.5 %
  2. Coomalie
    14 ha reached on 10 Jul
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
10 Jul 33.0 °C 32 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Jul 32.4 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jul 31.5 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Jul 26.7 °C 43 % 53 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
14 Jul 27.8 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jul 26.3 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul 26.6 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Jul 27.3 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jul 28.7 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jul 29.7 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jul 31.6 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jul 32.3 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Jul 33.0 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul 32.8 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul 33.3 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul 32.9 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jul 32.4 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jul 31.7 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul 30.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jul 31.7 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul 31.6 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jul 32.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug 32.4 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Aug 33.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug 29.3 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Aug 28.0 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Aug 28.3 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Aug after 29.6 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug after 30.6 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug after 30.4 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug after 32.3 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Aug after 32.7 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Aug after 33.6 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug after 33.6 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug after 34.1 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug after 33.3 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Aug after 32.9 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jul 2016
After · 12 Aug 2016

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 · 1,071Every 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 Unincorporated NT fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 July 2016 to 5 August 2016 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 July 2016 to 4 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 29,738 hectares (297.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Unincorporated NT (29,118 ha, 1.5 %); Coomalie (14 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 4 August 2016 → 5 August 2016.
  2. Start date: 14 July 2016 → 10 July 2016.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 July 2016 to 4 August 2016. 1,071 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.