Broome fire, 20 July 2026 Broome
The fire started on 20 July 2026 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,718 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 201th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2710 with a page). Number 87 in Australia in 2026, of 848.
- Burnt area
- 27,718ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 20 Jul 2026 – 2 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 20 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 529
- in a single hotspot: 197 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 9.1GW
- 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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 632 ha in 2016, 7,798 ha in 2017, 16,460 ha in 2018, 2,648 ha in 2019, 12,538 ha in 2020, 9,403 ha in 2021, 7,634 ha in 2022, 8,695 ha in 2023, 7,218 ha in 2024, 9,806 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 27,122 ha that had burned before.
- 6,691 ha Broome fire, September 2021 94,758 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,158 ha Broome fire, October 2020 10,725 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,727 ha Broome fire, August 2024 11,420 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,907 ha Broome fire, August 2018 27,254 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,916 ha Broome fire, August 2018 7,477 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 194 ha Broome fire, August 2025 16,277 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Broome where it started27,705 ha reached on 17 Jul0.5 %
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 Jul | 29.0 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Jul | 28.6 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Jul | 28.4 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Jul | 29.0 °C | 17 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Jul | 29.5 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Jul | 29.1 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Jul | 30.5 °C | 22 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Jul | 30.5 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Jul | 29.2 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 26 Jul | 28.5 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 27 Jul | 28.1 °C | 17 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Jul | 28.1 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Jul | 28.2 °C | 14 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Jul | 28.6 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 31 Jul | 30.1 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Aug | 31.5 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Aug | 30.2 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Aug after | 32.2 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 52 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 11 Aug after | 29.1 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 21 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 13 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 29 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Aug after | 28.9 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Aug after | 30.0 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Aug after | 32.0 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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 1 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 134 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 90: 6.0 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 · 529Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 94,758 haBroome4 September 2021 · 34 days · 16 km away
- 27,254 haBroome23 August 2018 · 9 days · 20 km away
- 16,277 haBroome26 August 2025 · 8 days · 21 km away
- 30,577 haBroome12 August 2018 · 15 days · 30 km away
- 22,582 haBroome7 August 2021 · 19 days · 38 km away
- 51,877 haBroome24 November 2021 · 11 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Broome fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 July 2026 and 2 August 2026: 14 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 27,718 hectares (277.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Broome (27,705 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.