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Broome fire, 10 October 2017 Broome

Out · last detection 19 Oct 2017, 06:19 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2017 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,122 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2632th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 831 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
5,122ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
10 Oct 2017 – 18 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
10 Oct
2017
Heat detections
205
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct18 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
37km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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
    5,109 ha reached on 10 Oct
    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)
10 Oct 31.7 °C 54 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Oct 33.2 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Oct 33.0 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Oct 32.9 °C 49 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
14 Oct 33.2 °C 52 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Oct 33.5 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
16 Oct 32.4 °C 57 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Oct 32.6 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Oct 33.8 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Oct after 36.8 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Oct after 31.6 °C 62 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Oct after 30.7 °C 64 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Oct after 32.2 °C 57 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Oct after 32.2 °C 57 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Oct after 31.7 °C 61 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Oct after 31.3 °C 63 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Oct after 31.9 °C 61 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Oct after 32.7 °C 56 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Oct after 34.8 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Oct 2017
After · 25 Oct 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 · 205Every 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 10 October 2017 and 18 October 2017: 9 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 5,122 hectares (51.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (5,109 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
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.