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Broome fire, September 2018 Broome

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2018, 16:08 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2018 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,690 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 482th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 185 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
16,690ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
14 Sept 2018 – 19 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Sept
2018
Heat detections
586
in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
57km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 662 ha in 2016, 634 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    16,845 ha reached on 14 Sept
    0.3 %

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)
14 Sept 31.9 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept 37.0 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
16 Sept 38.5 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 87
17 Sept 37.4 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
18 Sept 35.9 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
19 Sept 33.8 °C 11 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 92
20 Sept after 30.5 °C 22 % 55 km/h 0.5 mm Very extreme 72
21 Sept after 34.3 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Sept after 35.4 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
23 Sept after 38.4 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Sept after 38.5 °C 8 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
25 Sept after 39.1 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
26 Sept after 38.2 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
27 Sept after 32.9 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Sept after 34.1 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Sept after 34.0 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2018
After · 26 Sept 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 · 586Every 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 14 September 2018 and 19 September 2018: 6 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 16,690 hectares (166.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (16,845 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 92, 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

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.