Broome fire, 12 October 2026 Broome
The fire started on 12 October 2026 in Broome, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,179 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 785th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 2718 with a page). Number 260 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
- Burnt area
- 12,179ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 12 Oct 2026 – 18 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 12 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 241
- in a single hotspot: 148 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.4GW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 584 ha in 2016, 3,520 ha in 2017, 3,346 ha in 2018, 6,259 ha in 2019, 351 ha in 2020, 6,155 ha in 2021, 6,369 ha in 2022, 1,026 ha in 2023, 2,542 ha in 2024, 8,616 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,750 ha that had burned before.
- 2,793 ha Broome fire, July 2019 7,799 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,697 ha Broome fire, November 2022 14,121 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,316 ha Broome fire, May 2024 5,998 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,045 ha Broome fire, July 2018 10,656 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 574 ha Broome fire, September 2021 39,443 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 414 ha Broome fire, September 2025 23,045 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 41 ha Broome fire, October 2022 26,901 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 18 ha Broome fire, August 2021 22,582 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Broome where it started12,161 ha0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Oct | 35.8 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Oct | 37.8 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Oct | 38.8 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 1.4 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Oct | 41.2 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 16 Oct | 39.8 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
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 15 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 241Every 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 12 October 2026 and 18 October 2026: 7 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 12,179 hectares (121.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Broome (12,161 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Broome fire still active?
- No fire detections since 18 Oct 2026, 06:20 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.