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Victoria Daly fire, 14 July 2016 Victoria Daly, West Arnhem, Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2016, 05:17 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2016 in Victoria Daly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,777 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 551th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3517 with a page). Number 54 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Victoria Daly · 2024Victoria Daly · 2019West Arnhem · 2026Roper Gulf · 2023

Burnt area
21,777ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
14 Jul 2016 – 10 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
14 Jul
2016
Heat detections
744
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
121MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul10 Aug
11 Aug 2016

How it evolved, day by day

14 Jul 2016 · 83 MW · 10 15 Jul 2016 · 10 MW · 5 16 Jul 2016 · 35 MW · 3 19 Jul 2016 · 38 MW · 2 20 Jul 2016 · 1 MW · 1 21 Jul 2016 · 23 MW · 6 22 Jul 2016 · 26 MW · 11 23 Jul 2016 · 42 MW · 11 24 Jul 2016 · 23 MW · 7 25 Jul 2016 · 56 MW · 10 26 Jul 2016 · 198 MW · 19 27 Jul 2016 · 164 MW · 36 28 Jul 2016 · 392 MW · 52 29 Jul 2016 · 210 MW · 44 30 Jul 2016 · 240 MW · 49 31 Jul 2016 · 214 MW · 49 1 Aug 2016 · 279 MW · 73 2 Aug 2016 · 234 MW · 90 3 Aug 2016 · 174 MW · 56 4 Aug 2016 · 189 MW · 60 5 Aug 2016 · 146 MW · 53 6 Aug 2016 · 57 MW · 29 7 Aug 2016 · 237 MW · 29 8 Aug 2016 · 71 MW · 17 9 Aug 2016 · 23 MW · 6 10 Aug 2016 · 72 MW · 10 11 Aug 2016 · 27 MW · 6
14 Jul 20 Jul 24 Jul 28 Jul 1 Aug 5 Aug 9 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

34°high
54km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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 14% of the area of London (218 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. Victoria Daly where it started
    21,154 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.1 %
  2. West Arnhem
    359 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.0 %
  3. Roper Gulf
    178 ha reached on 2 Aug
    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)
14 Jul 26.0 °C 42 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Jul 24.7 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Jul 25.4 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jul 26.7 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Jul 28.0 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Jul 29.4 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Jul 31.7 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Jul 32.6 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Jul 33.5 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul 33.0 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jul 33.5 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jul 32.7 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 31.7 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul 31.4 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jul 30.1 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jul 31.2 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jul 31.4 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Jul 32.5 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug 32.9 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug 33.6 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Aug 28.2 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Aug 27.0 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Aug 27.7 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Aug 29.4 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Aug 31.4 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug 30.9 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Aug 33.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Aug 33.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Aug after 34.2 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug after 33.7 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Aug after 33.9 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Aug after 32.7 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Aug after 32.6 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Aug after 33.2 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Aug after 32.7 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Aug after 32.7 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 31.4 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 38
20 Aug after 34.0 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2016
After · 17 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 · 744Every 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 Victoria Daly fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 July 2016 to 10 August 2016 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 July 2016 to 8 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,777 hectares (217.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Victoria Daly (21,154 ha, 0.1 %); West Arnhem (359 ha, 0.0 %); Roper Gulf (178 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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: 8 August 2016 → 10 August 2016.
  2. Start date: 19 July 2016 → 14 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 July 2016 to 8 August 2016. 744 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.