Burned area
satellite only25,857ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 25 Apr 2018 – 6 May 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Wandering fire, April 2018 Wandering, Brookton, Beverley
Out · last detection 6 May 2018, 17:02 UTC
The fire started on 25 April 2018 in Wandering, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,857 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 42th largest in Western Australia since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 15 in Australia in 2018, of 162.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only12days
25 Apr 2018 to 6 May 2018: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 6 May 2018, 17:02 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only25 Apr 2018
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 25 Apr 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only1,985
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 184 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 25 Apr 2018 – 6 May 2018
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only8,642MW
Total radiative power on 5 May 2018; hotspots that day: 669.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 May 2018
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model7.5FWI · low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 2.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 25 Apr 2018, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model27.1°C · 24% RH
High of 27.1 °C and minimum humidity of 24% on 29 April 2018; gusts of 78 km/h on 6 May 2018.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 25 Apr 2018 – 6 May 2018
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logArea: 27,499 → 25,857 ha.
What was saved on 5 November 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 25,857 ha
- Dates
- 25 Apr 2018 – 6 May 2018
- Name
- Beverley
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/wandering-2018-04?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire wandering-2018-04.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-04-25 | 5 | 14 | 20.8 | 8.1 | 43 | 11 | 27 | 0 | 7.5 | bajo | 1 |
| 2018-04-26 | 12 | 60 | 23.8 | 9.6 | 45 | 13.6 | 32 | 0 | 13.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-04-27 | 24 | 121 | 23.1 | 12.8 | 45 | 18 | 36.4 | 0 | 13.8 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-04-28 | 129 | 1,168 | 23.8 | 12.8 | 51 | 17.3 | 38.9 | 0 | 13.8 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-04-29 | 428 | 3,686 | 27.1 | 14.6 | 24 | 19.6 | 44.3 | 0 | 28.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-04-30 | 585 | 2,994 | 25.7 | 14.1 | 35 | 21.9 | 46.4 | 0 | 31.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-05-01 | 127 | 1,494 | 17.6 | 8.8 | 40 | 16.5 | 34.2 | 0 | 22.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-05-02 | 2 | 1 | 15.9 | 6.5 | 46 | 26.6 | 56.2 | 0.3 | 21.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-05-03 | 0 | 0 | 17.7 | 5.6 | 39 | 17.3 | 37.1 | 0 | 18.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-05-04 | 2 | 2 | 18.5 | 3.4 | 36 | 8 | 26.6 | 0 | 16.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-05-05 | 669 | 8,642 | 24.3 | 4.7 | 15 | 19.5 | 46.4 | 0 | 35.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-05-06 | 2 | 3 | 17.9 | 10.8 | 25 | 36.9 | 77.8 | 2.1 | 16.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-05-07 | 0 | 0 | 18.6 | 8 | 45 | 8.9 | 23 | 0 | 9 | bajo | 0 |
| 2018-05-08 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 5.7 | 46 | 13.1 | 27.4 | 0 | 11.7 | moderado | 0 |
| 2018-05-09 | 0 | 0 | 20.3 | 8.1 | 42 | 20.4 | 38.9 | 0 | 18.8 | moderado | 0 |
| 2018-05-10 | 0 | 0 | 20.3 | 10.8 | 47 | 22.2 | 48.6 | 0 | 22.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-05-11 | 0 | 0 | 24.4 | 11.2 | 38 | 16.9 | 38.2 | 0 | 21.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-05-12 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 13.3 | 28 | 16.5 | 36 | 0 | 26 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-05-13 | 0 | 0 | 23.5 | 12.1 | 50 | 12.6 | 24.1 | 0 | 17.9 | moderado | 0 |
| 2018-05-14 | 0 | 0 | 21.5 | 12 | 53 | 20.3 | 46.4 | 0 | 23.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-05-15 | 0 | 0 | 22.7 | 10 | 41 | 16.6 | 38.2 | 0 | 19.7 | moderado | 0 |
| 2018-05-16 | 0 | 0 | 21.8 | 8.3 | 35 | 11.5 | 28.4 | 0 | 18.8 | moderado | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 25,857ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 25 Apr 2018 – 6 May 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- local government areas
- Started on
- 25 Apr
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 1,985
- in a single hotspot: 184 MW
- Danger at start
- 8
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.7GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
25 Apr6 May
6 May 2018
How it evolved, day by day
25 Apr
28 Apr
1 May
5 May
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
27°high
78km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 106 ha in 2016, 1,673 ha in 2017.
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
-
Wandering where it started21,229 ha11 %
-
4,362 ha2.7 %
-
1,973 ha0.8 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Apr | 20.8 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 26 Apr | 23.8 °C | 45 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 27 Apr | 23.1 °C | 45 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 28 Apr | 23.8 °C | 51 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 29 Apr | 27.1 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Apr | 25.7 °C | 35 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 May | 17.6 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 2 May | 15.9 °C | 46 % | 56 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 3 May | 17.7 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 May | 18.5 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 5 May | 24.3 °C | 15 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 May | 17.9 °C | 25 % | 78 km/h | 2.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 7 May after | 18.6 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 8 May after | 19.0 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 9 May after | 20.3 °C | 42 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 May after | 20.3 °C | 47 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 May after | 24.4 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 12 May after | 28.3 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 May after | 23.5 °C | 50 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 14 May after | 21.5 °C | 53 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 15 May after | 22.7 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 May after | 21.8 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 7.5, a minimum humidity of 43% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.
FWI at the start
7.5
Minimum humidity
43 %
Days without rain
2
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Wandering fire, April 2018
25,857 ha
12 days
FWI 7.5
Min. humidity 43 %
Wandering fire, October 2021
7,844 ha
2 days
FWI 7.8
Min. humidity 41 %
24 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.4 mm on 11 Oct.
Boddington fire, April 2021
5,911 ha
13 days
FWI 8.0
Min. humidity 46 %
31 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 18.2 mm on 29 Apr.
Williams fire, October 2016
5,222 ha
7 days
FWI 8.5
Min. humidity 41 %
80 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Beverley fire, April 2023
8,062 ha
6 days
FWI 11.4
Min. humidity 42 %
39 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.8 mm on 24 Apr.
Boddington fire, October 2016
6,911 ha
6 days
FWI 2.8
Min. humidity 44 %
37 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 29 Oct.
What happened to them
- 6 days
- median duration
- 6,242 ha
- median area
- 5 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 3.8 mm
- rain at the end (median; 18 of 19 had it)
It was 4.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 12 days, against 6 days.
None of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
78km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 6 May, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 19, with a median of 3.8 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 18 Apr 2018
After · 13 May 2018
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 1,985Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,354 haWanderingMay 2020 · 7 days · 15 km away
- 11,286 haBoddingtonMay 2022 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 8,651 haBoddington11 October 2016 · 3 days · 25 km away
- 15,741 haBeverleyApril 2017 · 9 days · 28 km away
- 10,112 haArmadaleOctober 2016 · 18 days · 35 km away
- 11,595 haBeverleyOctober 2016 · 20 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wandering fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 April 2018 and 6 May 2018: 12 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 25,857 hectares (258.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Wandering (21,229 ha, 11 %); Brookton (4,362 ha, 2.7 %); Beverley (1,973 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 27.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 19. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 6,242 ha; 5 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 mm.
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.
- Area: 27,499 → 25,857 ha.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,985 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.
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.