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Broome fire, 8 June 2022 Broome

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2022, 06:00 UTC

The fire started on 8 June 2022 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,700 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 637th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2710 with a page). Number 124 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Burnt area
13,700ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
37days
8 Jun 2022 – 14 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
8 Jun
2022
Heat detections
518
in a single hotspot: 350 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jun14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131415161718202122232425262729301234567891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
59km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,166 ha in 2016, 39 ha in 2017, 817 ha in 2018, 369 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Broome where it started
    13,846 ha reached on 8 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)
8 Jun 32.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Jun 31.3 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Jun 30.0 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jun 29.0 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jun 28.7 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Jun 29.9 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Jun 30.9 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Jun 31.1 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Jun 30.9 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Jun 30.9 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jun 30.3 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jun 30.3 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Jun 30.7 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Jun 31.8 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Jun 31.6 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Jun 29.4 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
24 Jun 29.0 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Jun 29.1 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Jun 28.4 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
27 Jun 26.7 °C 20 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
28 Jun 28.3 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Jun 26.5 °C 25 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
30 Jun 25.4 °C 24 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Jul 24.7 °C 21 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Jul 24.8 °C 24 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Jul 23.4 °C 20 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Jul 22.5 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
5 Jul 22.9 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jul 24.4 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Jul 25.4 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Jul 25.3 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Jul 25.4 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Jul 26.0 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Jul 26.4 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Jul 26.7 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Jul 25.7 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Jul 25.7 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
15 Jul after 27.2 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Jul after 28.5 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Jul after 29.2 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Jul after 29.7 °C 17 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jul after 29.8 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Jul after 30.3 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Jul after 31.5 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jul after 30.5 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Jul after 29.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Jul after 28.2 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jun 2022
After · 21 Jul 2022

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 · 518Every 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 8 June 2022 and 14 July 2022: 37 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 13,700 hectares (137.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Broome (13,846 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, 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
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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.