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Broome fire, 9 June 2017 Broome

Out · last detection 23 Jun 2017, 04:50 UTC

The fire started on 9 June 2017 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,755 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 726th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 226 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
12,755ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
9 Jun 2017 – 22 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
9 Jun
2017
Heat detections
482
in a single hotspot: 189 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jun22 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920212223

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
51km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 20 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    12,917 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 25.1 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
10 Jun 24.5 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Jun 24.6 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Jun 25.7 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Jun 26.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Jun 27.6 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Jun 28.0 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jun 28.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Jun 28.6 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jun 28.5 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Jun 27.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Jun 29.0 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jun 30.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jun 30.8 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jun after 30.9 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jun after 30.9 °C 25 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Jun after 30.0 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jun after 29.6 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jun after 27.8 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jun after 23.9 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jun after 25.3 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jun after 28.3 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Jul after 28.4 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Jul after 28.7 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Jul after 27.7 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jun 2017
After · 29 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 · 482Every 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 22 June 2017: 14 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 12,755 hectares (127.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (12,917 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.