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Broome fire, 6 July 2018 Broome

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2018, 05:10 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2018 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,697 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1812th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 646 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
6,697ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
6 Jul 2018 – 27 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
6 Jul
2018
Heat detections
224
in a single hotspot: 84 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213141516171819202122232527

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
52km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 936 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    6,686 ha reached on 5 Jul
    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)
5 Jul 28.0 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Jul 27.4 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jul 27.5 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jul 26.8 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jul 26.0 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jul 26.0 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Jul 26.7 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jul 26.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jul 25.7 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Jul 25.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul 26.2 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Jul 26.5 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Jul 27.1 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Jul 26.8 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Jul 29.0 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Jul 27.8 °C 44 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Jul 28.1 °C 40 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Jul 26.8 °C 46 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Jul 26.4 °C 53 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Jul 26.1 °C 55 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Jul 27.2 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Jul 27.2 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jul 27.5 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Jul after 27.2 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jul after 26.7 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul after 26.4 °C 44 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Jul after 26.1 °C 55 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Aug after 25.5 °C 63 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Aug after 25.6 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Aug after 23.6 °C 29 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Aug after 26.0 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Aug after 26.4 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Aug after 25.0 °C 26 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Aug after 26.7 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Aug after 27.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jun 2018
After · 3 Aug 2018

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 · 224Every 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 6 July 2018 and 27 July 2018: 22 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 6,697 hectares (67.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (6,686 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.