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East Arnhem fire, 15 August 2022 East Arnhem

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2022, 04:33 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2022 in East Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 43 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,228 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 347th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3517 with a page). Number 24 in Australia in 2022, of 566.

Compare with…

Suggestions: East Arnhem · 2018East Arnhem · 2017East Arnhem · 2024East Arnhem · 2026

Burnt area
31,228ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
43days
15 Aug 2022 – 26 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Aug
2022
Heat detections
1,492
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
291MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug26 Sept
26 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

15 Aug 2022 · 12 MW · 3 16 Aug 2022 · 73 MW · 14 17 Aug 2022 · 29 MW · 7 18 Aug 2022 · 87 MW · 17 19 Aug 2022 · 119 MW · 14 20 Aug 2022 · 381 MW · 39 21 Aug 2022 · 259 MW · 35 22 Aug 2022 · 133 MW · 26 23 Aug 2022 · 181 MW · 29 24 Aug 2022 · 1,158 MW · 152 25 Aug 2022 · 1,272 MW · 143 26 Aug 2022 · 1,504 MW · 142 27 Aug 2022 · 671 MW · 89 28 Aug 2022 · 183 MW · 20 29 Aug 2022 · 196 MW · 35 30 Aug 2022 · 2 MW · 2 31 Aug 2022 · 106 MW · 25 1 Sept 2022 · 67 MW · 13 2 Sept 2022 · 27 MW · 10 3 Sept 2022 · 5 MW · 7 4 Sept 2022 · 392 MW · 62 5 Sept 2022 · 628 MW · 106 6 Sept 2022 · 2,235 MW · 100 7 Sept 2022 · 266 MW · 49 8 Sept 2022 · 8 MW · 9 9 Sept 2022 · 15 MW · 6 10 Sept 2022 · 137 MW · 31 11 Sept 2022 · 148 MW · 18 13 Sept 2022 · 6 MW · 3 14 Sept 2022 · 38 MW · 9 15 Sept 2022 · 233 MW · 31 16 Sept 2022 · 200 MW · 28 17 Sept 2022 · 107 MW · 16 18 Sept 2022 · 60 MW · 15 19 Sept 2022 · 124 MW · 37 20 Sept 2022 · 284 MW · 42 21 Sept 2022 · 573 MW · 52 22 Sept 2022 · 155 MW · 19 23 Sept 2022 · 77 MW · 16 24 Sept 2022 · 32 MW · 8 25 Sept 2022 · 47 MW · 11 26 Sept 2022 · 6 MW · 2
15 Aug 21 Aug 27 Aug 2 Sept 6 Sept 8 Sept 15 Sept 21 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

30°high
60km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 538 ha in 2016, 10,946 ha in 2017, 22,273 ha in 2018, 1,727 ha in 2019, 9,912 ha in 2020, 1,042 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 29,634 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 20% of the area of London (312 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
    31,594 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.9 %

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 area0.15 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 hectares of 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)
15 Aug 24.0 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
16 Aug 24.5 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Aug 24.0 °C 51 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Aug 24.3 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
19 Aug 25.5 °C 54 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Aug 24.2 °C 56 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Aug 24.3 °C 54 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Aug 25.5 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Aug 25.1 °C 58 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 Aug 22.8 °C 54 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Aug 22.0 °C 53 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Aug 24.0 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Aug 25.5 °C 59 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
28 Aug 26.8 °C 65 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Aug 26.9 °C 70 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 15
30 Aug 27.0 °C 67 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
31 Aug 27.4 °C 65 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
1 Sept 27.0 °C 68 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
2 Sept 26.3 °C 67 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
3 Sept 24.4 °C 68 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Sept 23.6 °C 60 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Sept 25.3 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Sept 26.8 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
7 Sept 26.2 °C 70 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
8 Sept 27.2 °C 68 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
9 Sept 26.7 °C 75 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
10 Sept 27.1 °C 66 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
11 Sept 27.1 °C 72 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
12 Sept 27.4 °C 72 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
13 Sept 28.5 °C 56 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Sept 27.9 °C 67 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Sept 28.2 °C 71 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Sept 27.9 °C 73 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Sept 28.4 °C 68 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Sept 28.5 °C 70 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Sept 30.0 °C 63 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
20 Sept 29.1 °C 69 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
21 Sept 29.7 °C 56 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Sept 29.1 °C 65 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
23 Sept 29.4 °C 56 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
24 Sept 29.6 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Sept 29.1 °C 55 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Sept 29.4 °C 63 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
27 Sept after 28.3 °C 74 % 32 km/h 4.9 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2022
After · 3 Oct 2022

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 · Copernicus

On 28 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 417 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 106: 7.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak417 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM10602 µg/m³
Optical depth0.98
14151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 1,492Every 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 15 August 2022 to 26 September 2022 (43 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2022 to 25 September 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 31,228 hectares (312.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered East Arnhem (31,594 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 25 September 2022 → 26 September 2022.
  2. Start date: 16 August 2022 → 15 August 2022.

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 16 August 2022 to 25 September 2022. 1,492 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.