Burned area
satellite only5,723ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 21 Sept 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Broome fire, 21 September 2017 Derby-West Kimberley, Broome
Out · last detection 24 Sept 2017, 05:47 UTC
The fire started on 21 September 2017 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,723 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-15matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only4days
21 Sept 2017 to 24 Sept 2017: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 24 Sept 2017, 05:47 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only21 Sept 2017
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 21 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only177
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 133 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 21 Sept 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only2,546MW
Total radiative power on 23 September 2017; hotspots that day: 105.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 23 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model59.5FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 21 Sept 2017, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model36.5°C · 16% RH
High of 36.5 °C and minimum humidity of 16% on 22 September 2017; gusts of 48 km/h on 24 September 2017.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 21 Sept 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logName: Derby-West Kimberley → Broome.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 15 November 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 5,723 ha
- Dates
- 21 Sept 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
- Name
- Broome
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/broome-2017-09-2?v=2026-11-15A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire broome-2017-09-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-09-21 | 63 | 410 | 35.9 | 18.3 | 11 | 14.8 | 24.8 | 0 | 59.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-22 | 4 | 14 | 36.5 | 18.3 | 16 | 23.8 | 40.3 | 0 | 59.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-23 | 105 | 2,546 | 35.3 | 19.7 | 15 | 24.6 | 43.9 | 0 | 88 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-24 | 5 | 44 | 34.1 | 18.9 | 14 | 26.3 | 47.9 | 0 | 91.2 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-25 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 16.5 | 26 | 21.8 | 42.5 | 0 | 65.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-26 | 0 | 0 | 33.6 | 17.4 | 32 | 21.3 | 37.8 | 0 | 50.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-27 | 0 | 0 | 33.1 | 20.1 | 29 | 19.7 | 33.5 | 0 | 45.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-09-28 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 19.6 | 30 | 20.3 | 32.8 | 0 | 38.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-09-29 | 0 | 0 | 35.2 | 19.9 | 29 | 25.5 | 45 | 0 | 53.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-30 | 0 | 0 | 34.3 | 21.7 | 17 | 23.4 | 45.4 | 0 | 68.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-10-01 | 0 | 0 | 34.5 | 18.6 | 20 | 24.7 | 43.6 | 0 | 65.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-10-02 | 0 | 0 | 37.6 | 19.8 | 19 | 19.1 | 31.7 | 0 | 54 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-10-03 | 0 | 0 | 38.4 | 23.2 | 17 | 21.7 | 35.6 | 0 | 50.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-10-04 | 0 | 0 | 35.9 | 20.1 | 25 | 18.1 | 30.6 | 0 | 45.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,723ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 21 Sept 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 21 Sept
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 177
- in a single hotspot: 133 MW
- Danger at start
- 60
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 754MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
21 Sept24 Sept
24 Sept 2017
How it evolved, day by day
21 Sept
22 Sept
23 Sept
24 Sept
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
36°high
48km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 159 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 135 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
5,328 ha0.0 %
-
Broome where it started471 ha0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
Started with Extreme FWI: 43 % of the area in Australia Very dry air: 28 % of the area in Australia 60 days without rain: 8.2 % of the area in Australia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Sept | 35.9 °C | 11 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 22 Sept | 36.5 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 23 Sept | 35.3 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 24 Sept | 34.1 °C | 14 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 91 |
| 25 Sept after | 33.0 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 26 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 27 Sept after | 33.1 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Sept after | 34.6 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 29 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 29 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 30 Sept after | 34.3 °C | 17 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 1 Oct after | 34.5 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 2 Oct after | 37.6 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 3 Oct after | 38.4 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 4 Oct after | 35.9 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 14 Sept 2017
After · 1 Oct 2017
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 177Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Broome fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 September 2017 and 24 September 2017: 4 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 5,723 hectares (57.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Derby-West Kimberley (5,328 ha, 0.0 %); Broome (471 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 91, class Very 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Derby-West Kimberley → Broome.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 177 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.