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East Arnhem fire, 23 August 2018 East Arnhem

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2018, 04:52 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2018 in East Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 55 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,705 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 586th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3519 with a page). Number 135 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Compare with…

Suggestions: East Arnhem · 2017East Arnhem · 2019East Arnhem · 2026East Arnhem · 2026

Burnt area
20,705ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
55days
23 Aug 2018 – 16 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
23 Aug
2018
Heat detections
846
in a single hotspot: 104 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
135MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug16 Oct
16 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

23 Aug 2018 · 28 MW · 5 24 Aug 2018 · 25 MW · 2 25 Aug 2018 · 18 MW · 5 26 Aug 2018 · 17 MW · 2 27 Aug 2018 · 6 MW · 2 28 Aug 2018 · 86 MW · 7 29 Aug 2018 · 14 MW · 3 30 Aug 2018 · 50 MW · 5 31 Aug 2018 · 52 MW · 2 1 Sept 2018 · 19 MW · 10 2 Sept 2018 · 715 MW · 59 3 Sept 2018 · 224 MW · 18 4 Sept 2018 · 790 MW · 59 5 Sept 2018 · 126 MW · 23 6 Sept 2018 · 65 MW · 14 7 Sept 2018 · 34 MW · 9 8 Sept 2018 · 5 MW · 6 9 Sept 2018 · 66 MW · 4 10 Sept 2018 · 278 MW · 45 11 Sept 2018 · 35 MW · 7 12 Sept 2018 · 14 MW · 4 13 Sept 2018 · 27 MW · 8 14 Sept 2018 · 29 MW · 11 15 Sept 2018 · 88 MW · 18 16 Sept 2018 · 113 MW · 16 17 Sept 2018 · 1,079 MW · 33 18 Sept 2018 · 102 MW · 25 19 Sept 2018 · 36 MW · 8 20 Sept 2018 · 44 MW · 6 21 Sept 2018 · 175 MW · 15 22 Sept 2018 · 164 MW · 27 23 Sept 2018 · 29 MW · 6 24 Sept 2018 · 13 MW · 6 25 Sept 2018 · 2 MW · 2 26 Sept 2018 · 8 MW · 2 28 Sept 2018 · 4 MW · 4 29 Sept 2018 · 159 MW · 27 30 Sept 2018 · 119 MW · 25 1 Oct 2018 · 182 MW · 23 2 Oct 2018 · 189 MW · 29 3 Oct 2018 · 57 MW · 11 4 Oct 2018 · 343 MW · 42 5 Oct 2018 · 368 MW · 51 6 Oct 2018 · 346 MW · 27 7 Oct 2018 · 220 MW · 30 8 Oct 2018 · 150 MW · 25 9 Oct 2018 · 64 MW · 13 10 Oct 2018 · 83 MW · 19 11 Oct 2018 · 105 MW · 16 12 Oct 2018 · 97 MW · 11 13 Oct 2018 · 44 MW · 8 14 Oct 2018 · 20 MW · 8 16 Oct 2018 · 9 MW · 3
23 Aug 31 Aug 8 Sept 16 Sept 17 Sept 24 Sept 3 Oct 11 Oct

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

33°high
59km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,419 ha in 2016, 1,089 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (207 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. East Arnhem where it started
    20,797 ha reached on 23 Aug
    0.6 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
23 Aug 29.3 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Aug 29.8 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Aug 29.7 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
26 Aug 29.8 °C 47 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Aug 30.4 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Aug 30.6 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Aug 29.8 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Aug 29.7 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
31 Aug 29.7 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Sept 30.0 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Sept 31.9 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept 31.7 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept 31.4 °C 31 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Sept 30.9 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Sept 31.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Sept 29.6 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Sept 30.8 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Sept 30.3 °C 44 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept 31.5 °C 23 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept 30.6 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Sept 29.1 °C 46 % 38 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 18
13 Sept 30.4 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Sept 29.4 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
15 Sept 30.1 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
16 Sept 30.9 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Sept 31.0 °C 33 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Sept 31.6 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept 30.2 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Sept 30.4 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Sept 32.0 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Sept 31.4 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Sept 29.2 °C 52 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Sept 29.8 °C 45 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Sept 28.9 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Sept 29.1 °C 50 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Sept 27.7 °C 61 % 41 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 12
28 Sept 29.8 °C 46 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Sept 29.7 °C 40 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Sept 29.2 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Oct 30.2 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Oct 30.2 °C 44 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Oct 30.8 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Oct 31.2 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Oct 31.3 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Oct 32.3 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Oct 32.2 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Oct 31.5 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Oct 31.8 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Oct 31.8 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Oct 31.9 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Oct 32.8 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Oct 32.9 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
14 Oct 32.3 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
15 Oct 31.5 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
16 Oct 31.7 °C 54 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
17 Oct after 32.8 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
18 Oct after 32.7 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Oct after 32.9 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
20 Oct after 33.3 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Oct after 32.4 °C 49 % 33 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 16 Aug 2018
After · 23 Oct 2018

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 846Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the East Arnhem fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 August 2018 to 16 October 2018 (55 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 August 2018 to 16 October 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 20,705 hectares (207.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered East Arnhem (20,797 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · 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.
  1. Start date: 30 August 2018 → 23 August 2018.

RSS Changes to this page

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 000.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 August 2018 to 16 October 2018. 846 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.