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West Arnhem fire, 14 July 2017 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2017, 04:26 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2017 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,132 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2687th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 654 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
6,132ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
14 Jul 2017 – 21 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Jul
2017
Heat detections
184
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

14151617182021

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
48km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 689 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. West Arnhem where it started
    6,166 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
14 Jul 32.9 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jul 32.6 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Jul 33.0 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jul 33.7 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Jul 34.2 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jul 34.3 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul 33.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jul 32.8 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul after 33.1 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jul after 33.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul after 33.3 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul after 33.0 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul after 33.0 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jul after 32.4 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul after 32.0 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul after 31.7 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul after 32.1 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Jul after 32.9 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2017
After · 28 Jul 2017

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 · 184Every 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 14 July 2017 and 21 July 2017: 8 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 6,132 hectares (61.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (6,166 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.