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East Arnhem fire, 10 August 2020 East Arnhem

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2020, 04:27 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2020 in East Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,532 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 686th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3519 with a page). Number 44 in Australia in 2020, of 320.

Compare with…

Suggestions: East Arnhem · 2016East Arnhem · 2017East Arnhem · 2019East Arnhem · 2019

Burnt area
18,532ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
37days
10 Aug 2020 – 15 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
10 Aug
2020
Heat detections
969
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
176MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug15 Sept
15 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

10 Aug 2020 · 11 MW · 3 11 Aug 2020 · 323 MW · 30 12 Aug 2020 · 179 MW · 28 13 Aug 2020 · 106 MW · 24 14 Aug 2020 · 149 MW · 29 15 Aug 2020 · 136 MW · 25 16 Aug 2020 · 451 MW · 48 17 Aug 2020 · 886 MW · 107 18 Aug 2020 · 866 MW · 102 19 Aug 2020 · 164 MW · 36 20 Aug 2020 · 94 MW · 17 21 Aug 2020 · 16 MW · 6 22 Aug 2020 · 286 MW · 72 23 Aug 2020 · 560 MW · 94 24 Aug 2020 · 568 MW · 77 25 Aug 2020 · 323 MW · 41 26 Aug 2020 · 260 MW · 46 27 Aug 2020 · 133 MW · 29 28 Aug 2020 · 18 MW · 17 29 Aug 2020 · 53 MW · 18 30 Aug 2020 · 61 MW · 14 31 Aug 2020 · 37 MW · 7 1 Sept 2020 · 27 MW · 6 2 Sept 2020 · 1 MW · 2 3 Sept 2020 · 42 MW · 12 4 Sept 2020 · 96 MW · 16 5 Sept 2020 · 238 MW · 22 6 Sept 2020 · 49 MW · 10 7 Sept 2020 · 26 MW · 6 8 Sept 2020 · 55 MW · 9 9 Sept 2020 · 23 MW · 3 10 Sept 2020 · 4 MW · 2 11 Sept 2020 · 13 MW · 2 12 Sept 2020 · 4 MW · 2 14 Sept 2020 · 76 MW · 6 15 Sept 2020 · 8 MW · 1
10 Aug 16 Aug 17 Aug 22 Aug 28 Aug 3 Sept 9 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
64km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 18 Sept.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,515 ha in 2016, 8,318 ha in 2017, 8,232 ha in 2018, 4,513 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,322 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (185 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
    18,619 ha reached on 10 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)
10 Aug 31.4 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug 31.9 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Aug 31.2 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Aug 30.5 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Aug 30.8 °C 48 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Aug 30.9 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Aug 33.5 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Aug 32.1 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug 33.4 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug 30.5 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Aug 31.6 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug 32.3 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Aug 33.8 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug 32.9 °C 20 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Aug 31.7 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 32.4 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug 32.1 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Aug 33.2 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Aug 31.8 °C 30 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Aug 31.2 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug 31.8 °C 44 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug 32.1 °C 44 % 64 km/h 1.3 mm High 28
1 Sept 33.3 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept 32.0 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept 32.9 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Sept 33.9 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Sept 33.2 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept 33.5 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 33.2 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 33.6 °C 36 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Sept 33.7 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Sept 31.6 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept 32.0 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Sept 33.1 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept 32.2 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept 32.6 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept 32.7 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 45
16 Sept after 32.4 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Sept after 33.8 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept after 32.6 °C 53 % 45 km/h 3.4 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2020
After · 22 Sept 2020

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 · 969Every 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 10 August 2020 to 15 September 2020 (37 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 August 2020 to 14 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,532 hectares (185.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered East Arnhem (18,619 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 14 September 2020 → 15 September 2020.
  2. Start date: 11 August 2020 → 10 August 2020.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 August 2020 to 14 September 2020. 969 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.