Broome fire, April 2025 Broome
The fire started on 24 April 2025 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,914 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 909th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2710 with a page). Number 445 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
- Burnt area
- 10,914ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 24 Apr 2025 – 12 May 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 24 Apr
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 434
- in a single hotspot: 135 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.2GW
- 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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 992 ha in 2016, 149 ha in 2017, 3,017 ha in 2018, 357 ha in 2019, 376 ha in 2021, 1,793 ha in 2022, 240 ha in 2023, 82 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,205 ha that had burned before.
- 773 ha Broome fire, July 2022 11,634 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 378 ha Broome fire, October 2018 9,117 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 82 ha Broome fire, May 2024 8,419 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 64 ha Broome fire, November 2021 16,647 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 61 ha Broome fire, November 2023 10,459 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Broome where it started10,967 ha reached on 24 Apr0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Apr | 36.6 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 25 Apr | 36.4 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Apr | 36.1 °C | 16 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 27 Apr | 35.3 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 28 Apr | 35.8 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 29 Apr | 36.0 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 30 Apr | 33.8 °C | 20 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 1 May | 34.3 °C | 21 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 2 May | 34.3 °C | 16 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 3 May | 34.7 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 May | 36.1 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 May | 37.2 °C | 17 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 6 May | 37.0 °C | 19 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 May | 36.8 °C | 18 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 8 May | 35.0 °C | 17 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 9 May | 34.4 °C | 24 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 10 May | 35.5 °C | 22 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 11 May | 34.0 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 12 May | 34.3 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 13 May after | 36.0 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 14 May after | 35.2 °C | 31 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 15 May after | 33.9 °C | 19 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 16 May after | 32.7 °C | 16 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 17 May after | 31.8 °C | 14 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 18 May after | 31.0 °C | 14 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 19 May after | 29.8 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 20 May after | 29.9 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 21 May after | 29.6 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 22 May after | 31.1 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
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 25 April 2025 the air beside the fire reached 9 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 · 434Every 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 24 April 2025 and 12 May 2025: 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 10,914 hectares (109.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Broome (10,967 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.