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West Daly fire, July 2016 West Daly

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2016, 05:36 UTC

The fire started on 5 July 2016 in West Daly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,776 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1711th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 192 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
8,776ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
5 Jul 2016 – 9 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Jul
2016
Heat detections
242
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jul9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

56789

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
53km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 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.

What happened to each town

  1. West Daly where it started
    8,822 ha reached on 5 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
28 Jun 32.3 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Jun 31.6 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jun 32.0 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Jul 31.9 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jul 30.9 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jul 30.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Jul 31.8 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Jul 33.1 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jul 32.6 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Jul 30.7 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jul 31.6 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Jul 32.9 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jul after 33.8 °C 23 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Jul after 32.4 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Jul after 33.6 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Jul after 26.5 °C 42 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jul after 27.6 °C 36 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jul after 26.3 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul after 26.4 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jul after 27.2 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jul after 28.8 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jul after 29.7 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jul after 31.7 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul after 32.4 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul after 33.9 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jul after 33.3 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Jul after 33.6 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jun 2016
After · 16 Jul 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 · 242Every 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 West Daly fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 July 2016 and 9 July 2016: 5 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 8,776 hectares (87.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Daly (8,822 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
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
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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.