Broome fire, 18 May 2024 Broome
The fire started on 18 May 2024 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,789 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 392th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 99 in Australia in 2024, of 638.
- Burnt area
- 18,789ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 18 May 2024 – 28 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 18 May
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 770
- in a single hotspot: 220 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 12.1GW
- 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 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.0 mm on 29 May.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 402 ha in 2016, 5,161 ha in 2017, 1,032 ha in 2018, 8,920 ha in 2019, 335 ha in 2020, 7,538 ha in 2021, 4,992 ha in 2022, 4,516 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,478 ha that had burned before.
- 5,461 ha Broome fire, November 2021 34,511 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,879 ha Broome fire, November 2019 5,432 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,586 ha Broome fire, July 2017 9,206 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 824 ha Broome fire, August 2018 30,577 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 706 ha Broome fire, September 2021 94,758 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Broome where it started18,822 ha reached on 17 May0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 May | 32.6 °C | 35 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 May | 31.6 °C | 30 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 May | 30.5 °C | 31 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 May | 29.2 °C | 22 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 21 May | 27.9 °C | 18 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 22 May | 27.9 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 May | 27.8 °C | 30 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 May | 28.6 °C | 45 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 25 May | 29.7 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 26 May | 31.1 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 27 May | 31.1 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 28 May | 29.1 °C | 42 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 May after | 27.7 °C | 65 % | 38 km/h | 10.0 mm | Very low 3 |
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 22 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 135 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 71: 4.7 times the WHO daily 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 · 770Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 26,827 haBroome20 May 2024 · 7 days · 23 km away
- 34,511 haBroome22 November 2021 · 8 days · 26 km away
- 30,577 haBroome12 August 2018 · 15 days · 27 km away
- 27,254 haBroome23 August 2018 · 9 days · 34 km away
- 16,747 haBroome22 November 2023 · 13 days · 38 km away
- 15,819 haBroome25 November 2025 · 7 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Broome fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 May 2024 and 28 May 2024: 11 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 18,789 hectares (187.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Broome (18,822 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.