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Broome fire, 5 June 2019 Broome

Out · last detection 19 Jun 2019, 06:19 UTC

The fire started on 5 June 2019 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,047 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1390th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 473 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
8,047ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
5 Jun 2019 – 18 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Jun
2019
Heat detections
407
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jun18 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
50km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 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: 1,588 ha in 2016, 2,195 ha in 2017, 3,330 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,427 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    8,031 ha reached on 5 Jun
    0.2 %

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 Jun 26.4 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Jun 25.8 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Jun 25.8 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Jun 27.7 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Jun 27.9 °C 53 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Jun 28.0 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Jun 28.9 °C 52 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Jun 29.5 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Jun 30.3 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Jun 31.1 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jun 31.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jun 29.8 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jun 29.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Jun 29.1 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jun after 28.2 °C 58 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Jun after 28.1 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Jun after 27.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jun after 26.9 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jun after 26.9 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jun after 27.6 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Jun after 27.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jun after 27.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jun after 27.4 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jun after 27.4 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jun after 28.4 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Jun after 29.0 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Jul after 29.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Jul after 28.1 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 May 2019
After · 25 Jun 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 · 407Every 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 5 June 2019 and 18 June 2019: 14 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 8,047 hectares (80.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (8,031 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.