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Broome fire, 7 August 2021 Broome

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2021, 04:58 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2021 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,582 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 277th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 56 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
22,582ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
7 Aug 2021 – 25 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
7 Aug
2021
Heat detections
1,174
in a single hotspot: 268 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
11.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151617181920212223242526

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
49km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 130 ha in 2016, 3,410 ha in 2017, 15,289 ha in 2018, 3,036 ha in 2019, 1,492 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,604 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    22,548 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
1 Aug 27.1 °C 53 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Aug 27.9 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Aug 28.6 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Aug 29.1 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Aug 27.6 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug 27.5 °C 28 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Aug 26.7 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 26.2 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug 26.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Aug 28.3 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Aug 28.8 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Aug 29.0 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug 30.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug 28.2 °C 59 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Aug 29.7 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Aug 30.5 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug 29.8 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Aug 27.6 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Aug 28.7 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug 29.1 °C 27 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Aug 29.4 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 28.7 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Aug 30.1 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug 31.4 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 28.6 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Aug after 27.8 °C 61 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Aug after 28.1 °C 55 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Aug after 29.6 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug after 30.4 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Aug after 30.7 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug after 30.1 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept after 28.9 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept after 28.7 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Sept after 30.2 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept after 31.4 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept after 31.2 °C 35 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Sept after 29.1 °C 37 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Sept after 29.1 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Sept after 29.0 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Sept after 30.3 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept after 29.6 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept after 28.9 °C 34 % 25 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 · 31 Jul 2021
After · 1 Sept 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 · 1,174Every 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 7 August 2021 and 25 August 2021: 19 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 22,582 hectares (225.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (22,548 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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
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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.