West Daly fire, 19 July 2021 West Daly
The fire started on 19 July 2021 in West Daly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,521 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 877th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3517 with a page). Number 107 in Australia in 2021, of 460.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 15,521ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 19 Jul 2021 – 11 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 19 Jul
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 702
- in a single hotspot: 363 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 333MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,875 ha in 2016, 12,278 ha in 2017, 5,075 ha in 2018, 9,778 ha in 2019, 2,526 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,054 ha that had burned before.
- 10,730 ha West Daly fire, June 2017 25,872 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,797 ha West Daly fire, June 2019 9,272 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,379 ha West Daly fire, August 2018 16,126 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,168 ha West Daly fire, November 2019 5,411 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 187 ha West Daly fire, August 2019 8,249 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5 ha West Daly fire, July 2020 5,423 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
West Daly where it started15,567 ha reached on 19 Jul1.1 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jul | 31.0 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Jul | 31.2 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Jul | 31.0 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 22 Jul | 31.3 °C | 23 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Jul | 30.4 °C | 44 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 24 Jul | 32.0 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Jul | 31.3 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 26 Jul | 31.0 °C | 50 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 27 Jul | 30.8 °C | 50 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Jul | 30.8 °C | 50 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 29 Jul | 31.4 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 30 Jul | 32.3 °C | 43 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 Jul | 31.2 °C | 50 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Aug | 31.4 °C | 49 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Aug | 31.7 °C | 47 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 3 Aug | 31.3 °C | 45 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Aug | 32.0 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Aug | 30.9 °C | 19 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 6 Aug | 29.8 °C | 15 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 7 Aug | 29.7 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 8 Aug | 30.1 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 9 Aug | 31.4 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Aug | 31.4 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Aug | 31.2 °C | 48 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 17 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 20 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 18 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Aug after | 32.4 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 38 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 702Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,872 haWest Daly5 June 2017 · 16 days · 2 km away
- 17,414 haWest Daly13 May 2025 · 10 days · 3 km away
- 14,611 haWest DalyMay 2023 · 12 days · 4 km away
- 16,126 haWest Daly9 August 2018 · 10 days · 11 km away
- 12,693 haWest Daly13 July 2019 · 13 days · 30 km away
- 25,324 haWest Daly23 June 2026 · 29 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the West Daly fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 July 2021 to 11 August 2021 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 July 2021 to 5 August 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,521 hectares (155.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered West Daly (15,567 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 48 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 5 August 2021 → 11 August 2021.
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
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 2021 to 5 August 2021. 702 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.