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Broome fire, August 2017 Broome

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2017, 05:17 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2017 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,849 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1756th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 563 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
6,849ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
30 Aug 2017 – 14 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Aug
2017
Heat detections
328
in a single hotspot: 167 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3031123456789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
53km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 57 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    6,830 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.1 %

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)
30 Aug 29.0 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Aug 27.7 °C 46 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Sept 28.0 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Sept 28.1 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Sept 30.7 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 31.8 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept 31.1 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 28.4 °C 58 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Sept 30.0 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Sept 30.3 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Sept 30.0 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept 29.3 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Sept 28.6 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept 29.6 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept 31.7 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept 33.3 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Sept after 30.6 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept after 31.1 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Sept after 31.4 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept after 30.9 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept after 32.6 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Sept after 31.0 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Sept after 29.6 °C 53 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Sept after 29.3 °C 59 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Sept after 29.6 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Sept after 29.8 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Sept after 29.1 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Sept after 29.1 °C 58 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Sept after 29.1 °C 59 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Sept after 29.3 °C 56 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Sept after 29.3 °C 58 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Sept after 32.9 °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 · 23 Aug 2017
After · 21 Sept 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 · 328Every 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 30 August 2017 and 14 September 2017: 16 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 6,849 hectares (68.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (6,830 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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
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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.