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Broome fire, 17 October 2018 Broome, Derby-West Kimberley

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2018, 06:19 UTC

The fire started on 17 October 2018 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,823 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1775th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 637 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
6,823ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
17 Oct 2018 – 22 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
17 Oct
2018
Heat detections
185
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
63
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Oct22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

171819202122

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
39km/h · peak gust
10%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
    6,803 ha reached on 17 Oct
    0.1 %
  2. Derby-West Kimberley
    20 ha reached on 20 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
17 Oct 38.8 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
18 Oct 34.3 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Oct 34.0 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Oct 34.5 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Oct 37.4 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Oct 37.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Oct after 36.3 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Oct after 36.3 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Oct after 35.1 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Oct after 34.6 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Oct after 35.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Oct after 36.0 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Oct after 36.3 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Oct after 36.8 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
31 Oct after 35.7 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Nov after 35.5 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Oct 2018
After · 29 Oct 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 · 185Every 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 17 October 2018 and 22 October 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 6,823 hectares (68.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Broome (6,803 ha, 0.1 %); Derby-West Kimberley (20 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.