Beverley fire, October 2023 Beverley
The fire started on 10 October 2023 in Beverley, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,657 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2297th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 1084 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 5,657ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 10 Oct 2023 – 17 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 10 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 428
- in a single hotspot: 92 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.1GW
- 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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,774 ha in 2016, 370 ha in 2017, 10 ha in 2021, 506 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,457 ha that had burned before.
- 2,759 ha Beverley fire, October 2016 11,595 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 108 ha Armadale fire, September 2022 8,451 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4 ha Beverley fire, April 2017 15,741 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Beverley where it started5,675 ha reached on 9 Oct2.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Oct | 21.6 °C | 50 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 11 Oct | 19.8 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 12 Oct | 23.1 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 13 Oct | 27.5 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Oct | 29.0 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Oct | 29.5 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Oct | 32.9 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Oct | 33.1 °C | 19 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Oct after | 25.4 °C | 41 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 19 Oct after | 26.0 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Oct after | 27.1 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Oct after | 22.9 °C | 57 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 23 Oct after | 19.9 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 24 Oct after | 22.7 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 25 Oct after | 30.2 °C | 16 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Oct after | 23.2 °C | 50 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Oct after | 20.4 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
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 17 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 18 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 · 428Every 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 Beverley fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2023 and 17 October 2023: 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 5,657 hectares (56.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Beverley (5,675 ha, 2.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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
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.