Broome fire, April 2023 Broome
The fire started on 22 April 2023 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,164 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1650th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 841 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 7,164ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 22 Apr 2023 – 1 May 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 22 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 280
- in a single hotspot: 38 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.6GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,576 ha in 2017, 4,379 ha in 2018, 1,920 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,988 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Broome where it started7,217 ha reached on 22 Apr0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Apr | 34.1 °C | 24 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Apr | 34.8 °C | 21 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 24 Apr | 34.5 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 25 Apr | 35.4 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 26 Apr | 35.6 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Apr | 37.1 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Apr | 36.4 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 29 Apr | 32.2 °C | 19 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 30 Apr | 32.2 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 May | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 2 May after | 34.1 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 May after | 33.7 °C | 17 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 4 May after | 32.9 °C | 16 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 5 May after | 33.0 °C | 18 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 6 May after | 33.2 °C | 19 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 7 May after | 33.8 °C | 25 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 8 May after | 31.7 °C | 20 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 9 May after | 30.6 °C | 17 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 10 May after | 30.2 °C | 13 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 11 May after | 31.6 °C | 10 % | 42 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.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 24 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 280Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Broome fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 April 2023 and 1 May 2023: 10 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 7,164 hectares (71.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Broome (7,217 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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.