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West Daly fire, 2 August 2017 West Daly

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2017, 04:14 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2017 in West Daly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,758 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1501th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 344 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
9,758ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
2 Aug 2017 – 11 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
2 Aug
2017
Heat detections
250
in a single hotspot: 269 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

23456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
44km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,464 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. West Daly where it started
    9,810 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
31 Jul 32.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Aug 32.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Aug 32.5 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug 30.2 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Aug 32.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Aug 33.1 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Aug 34.0 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug 34.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug 33.2 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Aug 32.8 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Aug 33.2 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug 33.4 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Aug after 33.3 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug after 34.0 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug after 33.7 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug after 34.0 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Aug after 34.2 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 35.6 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug after 36.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug after 36.1 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Aug after 35.3 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Aug after 34.6 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug after 33.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Aug after 35.1 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug after 35.7 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Aug after 34.6 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Aug after 33.3 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Aug after 34.1 °C 6 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
28 Aug after 32.3 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2017
After · 18 Aug 2017

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 · 250Every 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 2 August 2017 and 11 August 2017: 10 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 9,758 hectares (97.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Daly (9,810 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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

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.