How long did the Broome fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2018 and 26 August 2018: 15 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 30,577 hectares (305.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Broome (30,580 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.

AU · Australia · 2018-08-12 → 2018-08-26

Broome fire, 12 August 2018 Broome

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2018, 16:39 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2018 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 30,577 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 173th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 66 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area: 30,577ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 12 Aug 2018 – 26 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 12 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 1,162; in a single hotspot: 265 MW
Danger at start: 59; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 26.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 27 Aug 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

60km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,883 ha in 2017.

1,159 ha Broome fire, July 2017 9,206 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Broome where it started

30,580 ha reached on 12 Aug

0.6 %

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)
11 Aug	25.5 °C	23 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
12 Aug	26.2 °C	20 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
13 Aug	26.6 °C	19 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
14 Aug	27.0 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
15 Aug	27.0 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 Aug	27.5 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
17 Aug	26.7 °C	32 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Aug	28.0 °C	35 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Aug	30.2 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
20 Aug	29.5 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 Aug	27.7 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
22 Aug	27.4 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Aug	28.2 °C	28 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
24 Aug	27.2 °C	20 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
25 Aug	28.1 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
26 Aug	28.6 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
27 Aug after	27.3 °C	41 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
28 Aug after	26.5 °C	56 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
29 Aug after	25.7 °C	68 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
30 Aug after	23.1 °C	52 %	45 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 21
31 Aug after	27.6 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Sept after	25.8 °C	53 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
2 Sept after	26.9 °C	51 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
3 Sept after	28.0 °C	54 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Sept after	28.4 °C	49 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Sept after	27.6 °C	52 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
6 Sept after	28.4 °C	48 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Sept after	29.3 °C	39 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
8 Sept after	31.6 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
9 Sept after	33.1 °C	20 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
10 Sept after	30.5 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Aug 2018

After · 2 Sept 2018

Before After

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 · 1,162Every 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

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Broome fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2018 and 26 August 2018: 15 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 30,577 hectares (305.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Broome (30,580 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned