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Yilgarn fire, December 2019 Yilgarn

Out · last detection 21 Dec 2019, 16:23 UTC

The fire started on 7 December 2019 in Yilgarn, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,564 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 304th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 153 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
21,564ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
7 Dec 2019 – 21 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
7 Dec
2019
Heat detections
1,318
in a single hotspot: 438 MW
Danger at start
90
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
26.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Dec21 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

789101112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

45°high
62km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 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. Yilgarn where it started
    21,603 ha reached on 7 Dec
    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)
7 Dec 37.0 °C 10 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 90
8 Dec 30.3 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
9 Dec 31.7 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
10 Dec 35.3 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Dec 33.6 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 65
12 Dec 34.5 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
13 Dec 36.8 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Dec 39.3 °C 5 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
15 Dec 41.1 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Very extreme 76
16 Dec 39.9 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
17 Dec 42.7 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
18 Dec 44.9 °C 5 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
19 Dec 36.4 °C 8 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 89
20 Dec 32.6 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
21 Dec 38.1 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 68
22 Dec after 39.2 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 68
23 Dec after 40.9 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 58
24 Dec after 40.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 1.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Dec after 40.1 °C 20 % 58 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 65
26 Dec after 41.6 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
27 Dec after 38.0 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Dec after 40.0 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
29 Dec after 37.8 °C 8 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
30 Dec after 31.5 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
31 Dec after 34.4 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Jan after 42.0 °C 10 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
2 Jan after 34.9 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
3 Jan after 24.5 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
4 Jan after 27.5 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Jan after 32.0 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
6 Jan after 36.5 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Jan after 40.5 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Nov 2019
After · 28 Dec 2019

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 · 1,318Every 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 Yilgarn fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 December 2019 and 21 December 2019: 15 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 21,564 hectares (215.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yilgarn (21,603 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 44.9 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 90, class Very 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
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.

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.