Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Boddington fire, April 2026 Boddington, Wandering

Out · last detection 14 Apr 2026, 06:17 UTC

The fire started on 9 April 2026 in Boddington, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,297 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1997th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 615 in Australia in 2026, of 859.

Burnt area
6,297ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
9 Apr 2026 – 14 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
9 Apr
2026
Heat detections
562
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Apr 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Apr14 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
42km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 17 Apr.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 677 ha in 2016, 1,214 ha in 2017, 3,476 ha in 2019, 524 ha in 2022, 772 ha in 2024, 968 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,945 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Boddington where it started
    5,687 ha reached on 9 Apr
    3.0 %
  2. Wandering
    612 ha reached on 10 Apr
    0.3 %

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)
9 Apr 20.7 °C 47 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
10 Apr 21.8 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
11 Apr 25.2 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Apr 28.8 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
13 Apr 27.4 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Apr 27.2 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Apr after 23.1 °C 58 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
16 Apr after 24.8 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
17 Apr after 22.2 °C 65 % 46 km/h 1.0 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Apr 2026
After · 21 Apr 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 13 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1073 µg/m³
Optical depth0.67
7891011121314151617
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 562Every 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 Boddington fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 April 2026 and 14 April 2026: 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 6,297 hectares (63.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Boddington (5,687 ha, 3.0 %); Wandering (612 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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
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.