Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

West Arnhem fire, April 2016 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 25 Apr 2016, 16:50 UTC

The fire started on 19 April 2016 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,956 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1468th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 164 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
9,956ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
19 Apr 2016 – 24 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
19 Apr
2016
Heat detections
307
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Apr24 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
53km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 1 May.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. West Arnhem where it started
    10,050 ha reached on 19 Apr
    0.2 %

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)
19 Apr 34.7 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Apr 34.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Apr 35.0 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Apr 34.6 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Apr 34.3 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Apr 33.5 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Apr after 34.1 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Apr after 34.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Apr after 34.6 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Apr after 33.8 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Apr after 33.4 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Apr after 33.9 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
1 May after 34.7 °C 42 % 45 km/h 2.9 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Apr 2016
After · 1 May 2016

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 · 307Every 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 West Arnhem fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 April 2016 and 24 April 2016: 6 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 9,956 hectares (99.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (10,050 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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
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.

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.