Broome fire, 5 August 2026 Broome, Derby-West Kimberley
The fire started on 5 August 2026 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,052 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 117th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2729 with a page). Number 57 in Australia in 2026, of 891.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 39,052ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 5 Aug 2026 – 17 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 5 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 594
- in a single hotspot: 225 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 740MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,988 ha in 2017, 3 ha in 2018, 4,947 ha in 2021, 1,879 ha in 2022, 5,932 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 19,625 ha that had burned before.
- 4,004 ha Broome fire, June 2017 13,151 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,489 ha Derby-West Kimberley fire, September 2017 5,406 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,421 ha Broome fire, October 2023 21,900 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,032 ha Broome fire, September 2017 13,638 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,153 ha Derby-West Kimberley fire, December 2022 5,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 571 ha Derby-West Kimberley fire, April 2022 5,804 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 112 ha Derby-West Kimberley fire, December 2021 8,595 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Broome where it started20,848 ha reached on 5 Aug0.4 %
-
18,698 ha reached on 8 Aug0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Aug | 31.0 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Aug | 31.6 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 7 Aug | 31.9 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Aug | 33.0 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 9 Aug | 25.1 °C | 15 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 10 Aug | 27.6 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Aug | 29.2 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 12 Aug | 25.2 °C | 20 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 13 Aug | 30.5 °C | 18 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Aug | 31.9 °C | 27 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 Aug | 29.8 °C | 28 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Aug | 31.9 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Aug | 32.4 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Aug after | 34.7 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 22 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Aug after | 32.4 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 25 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 19 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 26 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 27 Aug after | 30.0 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
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 7 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 163 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 95: 6.3 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 · 594Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,638 haBroomeSeptember 2017 · 10 days · 11 km away
- 21,900 haBroome14 October 2023 · 12 days · 12 km away
- 13,151 haBroome9 June 2017 · 13 days · 13 km away
- 13,487 haBroome29 November 2021 · 5 days · 19 km away
- 18,039 haBroome7 May 2022 · 6 days · 32 km away
- 31,975 haBroome15 October 2023 · 8 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Broome fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 August 2026 to 17 August 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 August 2026 to 16 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 39,052 hectares (390.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Broome (20,848 ha, 0.4 %); Derby-West Kimberley (18,698 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 16 August 2026 → 17 August 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 August 2026 to 16 August 2026. 594 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.