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Broome fire, 9 June 2017 Broome

Out · last detection 21 Jun 2017, 05:28 UTC

The fire started on 9 June 2017 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,151 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 684th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 220 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
13,151ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
9 Jun 2017 – 21 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
9 Jun
2017
Heat detections
492
in a single hotspot: 199 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jun21 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

9101112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
53km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 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. Broome where it started
    13,293 ha reached on 9 Jun
    0.2 %

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 Jun 25.8 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
10 Jun 25.1 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
11 Jun 25.4 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
12 Jun 26.3 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
13 Jun 27.4 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Jun 28.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Jun 28.7 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Jun 29.0 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Jun 28.9 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Jun 29.0 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Jun 28.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Jun 29.7 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Jun 30.6 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Jun after 31.2 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jun after 31.0 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jun after 32.1 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jun after 30.7 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jun after 30.0 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jun after 28.7 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jun after 24.1 °C 33 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Jun after 25.4 °C 35 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
30 Jun after 28.4 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Jul after 28.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jun 2017
After · 28 Jun 2017

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 · 492Every 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 Broome fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 June 2017 and 21 June 2017: 13 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 13,151 hectares (131.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (13,293 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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

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.