Broome fire, 4 May 2026 Broome
The fire started on 4 May 2026 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,230 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 604th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 211 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
- Burnt area
- 14,230ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 4 May 2026 – 16 May 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 4 May
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 452
- in a single hotspot: 131 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.5GW
- 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 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.1 mm on 19 May.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 27 ha in 2016, 2,233 ha in 2017, 2,758 ha in 2018, 4,174 ha in 2019, 4 ha in 2020, 5,273 ha in 2021, 4,034 ha in 2022, 5,548 ha in 2023, 8,117 ha in 2024, 558 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,944 ha that had burned before.
- 7,733 ha Broome fire, May 2024 18,789 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,758 ha Broome fire, August 2018 30,577 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,162 ha Broome fire, September 2021 94,758 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,141 ha Broome fire, July 2017 9,206 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,426 ha Broome fire, November 2021 34,511 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 878 ha Broome fire, November 2019 5,432 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 92 ha Broome fire, May 2025 12,150 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Broome where it started14,220 ha reached on 4 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 May | 32.2 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 May | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 6 May | 31.2 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 2.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 7 May | 29.5 °C | 35 % | 50 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 32 |
| 8 May | 27.5 °C | 29 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 May | 28.6 °C | 34 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 May | 29.7 °C | 36 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 May | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 May | 31.7 °C | 44 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 May | 31.8 °C | 41 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 May | 31.5 °C | 45 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 May | 29.8 °C | 54 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 16 May | 30.1 °C | 55 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 17 May after | 28.3 °C | 57 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 18 May after | 26.7 °C | 49 % | 50 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 19 May after | 23.0 °C | 64 % | 49 km/h | 22.1 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 2 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 94 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 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 · 452Every 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 4 May 2026 and 16 May 2026: 13 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 14,230 hectares (142.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Broome (14,220 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.