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Broome fire, April 2020 Broome

Out · last detection 8 May 2020, 05:03 UTC

The fire started on 27 April 2020 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,689 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1275th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 131 in Australia in 2020, of 320.

Burnt area
8,689ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
27 Apr 2020 – 8 May 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
27 Apr
2020
Heat detections
341
in a single hotspot: 84 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 May 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Apr8 May

How it evolved, day by day

272829301234568

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
59km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 21 May.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 256 ha in 2017, 628 ha in 2018, 11 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    8,724 ha reached on 27 Apr
    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)
27 Apr 38.7 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 Apr 38.9 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Apr 39.4 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
30 Apr 34.0 °C 14 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 88
1 May 35.5 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
2 May 34.6 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
3 May 33.4 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
4 May 33.5 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
5 May 34.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
6 May 35.4 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 May 36.9 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 May 36.4 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 May after 36.3 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
10 May after 36.4 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
11 May after 34.7 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
12 May after 34.8 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 May after 33.9 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
14 May after 33.0 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
15 May after 33.1 °C 12 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
16 May after 33.2 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
17 May after 34.0 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
18 May after 34.6 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
19 May after 30.8 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
20 May after 25.5 °C 36 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 May after 23.6 °C 53 % 39 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Apr 2020
After · 15 May 2020

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 · 341Every 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 27 April 2020 and 8 May 2020: 12 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 8,689 hectares (86.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (8,724 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 88, 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.