Armadale fire, April 2023 Armadale, Wandering
The fire started on 19 April 2023 in Armadale, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,796 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 2229th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 1045 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 5,796ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 19 Apr 2023 – 24 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 19 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 378
- in a single hotspot: 311 MW
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.7GW
- sum of detected power
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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.7 mm on 25 Apr.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,753 ha in 2016, 16 ha in 2017, 270 ha in 2021, 640 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,728 ha that had burned before.
- 4,165 ha Armadale fire, October 2016 10,112 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 551 ha Wandering fire, September 2022 5,246 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 89 ha Armadale fire, September 2022 8,451 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 53 ha Wandering fire, October 2021 7,844 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Armadale where it started2,937 ha reached on 19 Apr5.2 %
-
2,869 ha reached on 19 Apr1.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Apr | 21.7 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 20 Apr | 22.5 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 21 Apr | 24.9 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 22 Apr | 26.3 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 23 Apr | 27.3 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 24 Apr | 15.8 °C | 68 % | 48 km/h | 3.3 mm | Very low 2 |
| 25 Apr after | 13.8 °C | 69 % | 48 km/h | 8.7 mm | Very low 0 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 23 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 378Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Armadale fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 April 2023 and 24 April 2023: 6 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 5,796 hectares (58.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Armadale (2,937 ha, 5.2 %); Wandering (2,869 ha, 1.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 27.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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
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.