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Broome fire, 24 May 2019 Broome

Out · last detection 24 Jun 2019, 04:45 UTC

The fire started on 24 May 2019 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,294 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 550th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2728 with a page). Number 222 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Broome · 2018Broome · 2026Broome · 2021Broome · 2025

Burnt area
15,294ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
24 May 2019 – 24 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
24 May
2019
Heat detections
669
in a single hotspot: 168 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
160MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 May24 Jun
24 Jun 2019

How it evolved, day by day

24 May 2019 · 387 MW · 74 25 May 2019 · 112 MW · 21 26 May 2019 · 24 MW · 7 27 May 2019 · 72 MW · 2 28 May 2019 · 17 MW · 1 29 May 2019 · 1 MW · 2 30 May 2019 · 223 MW · 29 31 May 2019 · 172 MW · 36 1 Jun 2019 · 412 MW · 58 2 Jun 2019 · 39 MW · 18 3 Jun 2019 · 49 MW · 21 4 Jun 2019 · 325 MW · 59 5 Jun 2019 · 143 MW · 37 6 Jun 2019 · 265 MW · 26 7 Jun 2019 · 31 MW · 9 8 Jun 2019 · 6 MW · 2 9 Jun 2019 · 522 MW · 12 10 Jun 2019 · 221 MW · 20 11 Jun 2019 · 27 MW · 3 12 Jun 2019 · 426 MW · 50 13 Jun 2019 · 141 MW · 26 14 Jun 2019 · 260 MW · 33 15 Jun 2019 · 148 MW · 45 16 Jun 2019 · 70 MW · 17 17 Jun 2019 · 283 MW · 19 18 Jun 2019 · 462 MW · 17 19 Jun 2019 · 18 MW · 3 20 Jun 2019 · 20 MW · 8 21 Jun 2019 · 69 MW · 9 22 Jun 2019 · 20 MW · 3 24 Jun 2019 · 10 MW · 2
24 May 29 May 3 Jun 8 Jun 9 Jun 13 Jun 18 Jun 24 Jun

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
58km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,972 ha in 2017, 3,133 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,323 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.7% of the area of London (153 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    15,264 ha reached on 24 May
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.17 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.17 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
24 May 32.9 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 May 33.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 May 33.0 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 May 33.1 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 May 32.5 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 May 31.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 May 30.3 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 May 28.7 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Jun 26.4 °C 14 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
2 Jun 27.8 °C 20 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Jun 27.6 °C 20 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Jun 27.3 °C 20 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Jun 27.5 °C 21 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Jun 27.2 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Jun 27.7 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jun 29.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jun 29.8 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Jun 30.2 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Jun 30.4 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jun 30.9 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jun 32.3 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Jun 33.5 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jun 33.0 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jun 32.1 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Jun 31.9 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Jun 30.8 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jun 29.6 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Jun 30.1 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Jun 29.4 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jun 29.1 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jun 28.5 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jun 29.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jun after 30.5 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Jun after 29.9 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jun after 29.7 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jun after 29.0 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun after 30.3 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Jun after 31.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Jul after 32.7 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jul after 30.9 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jul after 30.9 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Jul after 29.6 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 May 2019
After · 1 Jul 2019

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 · 669Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 May 2019 to 24 June 2019 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 May 2019 to 22 June 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,294 hectares (152.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (15,264 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 58 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 22 June 2019 → 24 June 2019.
  2. Start date: 30 May 2019 → 24 May 2019.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 May 2019 to 22 June 2019. 669 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.