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Broome fire, 14 April 2021 Broome

Out · last detection 20 Apr 2021, 04:56 UTC

The fire started on 14 April 2021 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,201 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2579th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 441 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
5,201ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
14 Apr 2021 – 20 Apr 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Apr
2021
Heat detections
240
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Apr 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Apr20 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920

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
54km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 69 ha in 2017, 84 ha in 2018, 266 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    5,253 ha reached on 14 Apr
    0.1 %

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 Apr 36.3 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Apr 36.4 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Apr 37.6 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Apr 37.5 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
18 Apr 33.5 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Apr 32.3 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Apr 33.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Apr after 34.4 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Apr after 34.1 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
23 Apr after 35.7 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
24 Apr after 36.1 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
25 Apr after 33.7 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
26 Apr after 33.3 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
27 Apr after 35.3 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
28 Apr after 37.0 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
29 Apr after 37.0 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
30 Apr after 36.6 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Apr 2021
After · 27 Apr 2021

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 · 240Every 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 April 2021 and 20 April 2021: 7 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 5,201 hectares (52.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (5,253 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.