Broome fire, August 2024 Broome
The fire started on 6 August 2024 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,420 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 851th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 216 in Australia in 2024, of 638.
- Burnt area
- 11,420ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 6 Aug 2024 – 15 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 6 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 277
- in a single hotspot: 153 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.8GW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,886 ha in 2017, 2,929 ha in 2018, 3,869 ha in 2019, 8,302 ha in 2020, 2,338 ha in 2021, 3,663 ha in 2022, 1,966 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,263 ha that had burned before.
- 4,231 ha Broome fire, October 2020 10,725 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 957 ha Broome fire, August 2018 27,254 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 287 ha Broome fire, September 2021 94,758 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 117 ha Broome fire, October 2023 8,988 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Broome where it started11,413 ha reached on 6 Aug0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Aug | 29.7 °C | 39 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Aug | 30.6 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Aug | 30.5 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Aug | 30.5 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Aug | 29.0 °C | 41 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Aug | 28.3 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Aug | 28.7 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Aug | 30.1 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Aug | 30.0 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Aug | 30.3 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 49 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 53 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Aug after | 26.8 °C | 55 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Aug after | 28.9 °C | 42 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 41 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Aug after | 29.1 °C | 52 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 59 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Aug after | 29.2 °C | 57 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Aug after | 32.4 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Aug after | 34.4 °C | 28 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
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 11 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.4 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 · 277Every 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 6 August 2024 and 15 August 2024: 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 11,420 hectares (114.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Broome (11,413 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.
- 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.