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West Daly fire, 5 July 2018 West Daly

Out · last detection 12 Jul 2018, 04:51 UTC

The fire started on 5 July 2018 in West Daly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,373 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3171th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 846 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
5,373ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
5 Jul 2018 – 12 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Jul
2018
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 89 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jul12 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112

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
43km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,746 ha in 2016, 729 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,651 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. West Daly where it started
    5,403 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
5 Jul 32.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Jul 32.9 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Jul 32.6 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Jul 29.7 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Jul 30.4 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jul 31.0 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jul 31.0 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jul 31.0 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jul after 30.8 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Jul after 31.2 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jul after 31.7 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jul after 32.3 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jul after 32.5 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Jul after 33.5 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Jul after 33.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Jul after 33.8 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jul after 32.8 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Jul after 32.4 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jun 2018
After · 19 Jul 2018

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 · 156Every 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 2018 and 12 July 2018: 8 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 5,373 hectares (53.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Daly (5,403 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 43 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.