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West Arnhem fire, 18 July 2017 West Arnhem, Unincorporated NT

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2017, 03:55 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2017 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,071 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 540th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3503 with a page). Number 90 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Unincorporated NT · 2016West Arnhem · 2026West Arnhem · 2026Unincorporated NT · 2019

Burnt area
22,071ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
18 Jul 2017 – 13 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
18 Jul
2017
Heat detections
824
in a single hotspot: 80 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
202MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul13 Aug
13 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2017 · 2 MW · 2 19 Jul 2017 · 192 MW · 17 20 Jul 2017 · 50 MW · 9 21 Jul 2017 · 170 MW · 10 22 Jul 2017 · 43 MW · 7 23 Jul 2017 · 822 MW · 55 24 Jul 2017 · 196 MW · 45 25 Jul 2017 · 525 MW · 67 26 Jul 2017 · 239 MW · 46 27 Jul 2017 · 192 MW · 41 28 Jul 2017 · 423 MW · 44 29 Jul 2017 · 492 MW · 83 30 Jul 2017 · 194 MW · 25 31 Jul 2017 · 301 MW · 53 1 Aug 2017 · 179 MW · 57 2 Aug 2017 · 168 MW · 43 3 Aug 2017 · 163 MW · 42 4 Aug 2017 · 132 MW · 46 5 Aug 2017 · 138 MW · 43 6 Aug 2017 · 146 MW · 24 7 Aug 2017 · 44 MW · 11 8 Aug 2017 · 295 MW · 16 9 Aug 2017 · 75 MW · 8 10 Aug 2017 · 8 MW · 4 11 Aug 2017 · 15 MW · 4 12 Aug 2017 · 238 MW · 18 13 Aug 2017 · 12 MW · 4
18 Jul 22 Jul 23 Jul 26 Jul 30 Jul 3 Aug 7 Aug 11 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,913 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 14% of the area of London (221 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. West Arnhem where it started
    21,210 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.4 %
  2. Unincorporated NT
    1,010 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.0 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
18 Jul 35.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Jul 34.6 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jul 33.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul 33.1 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jul 33.4 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Jul 33.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul 34.5 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jul 34.6 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul 34.4 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul 33.2 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul 32.9 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul 32.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 32.3 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Jul 33.3 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug 33.0 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug 33.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug 32.0 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 32.8 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Aug 34.3 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
6 Aug 34.7 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 34.9 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug 34.9 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Aug 33.9 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Aug 33.9 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Aug 33.5 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug 34.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug 34.2 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug after 34.0 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug after 34.3 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Aug after 34.6 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Aug after 35.4 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug after 36.3 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 36.8 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug after 35.8 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug after 35.5 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Aug after 35.3 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug after 34.7 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2017
After · 20 Aug 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 · 824Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 July 2017 to 13 August 2017 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 July 2017 to 9 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 22,071 hectares (220.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: West Arnhem (21,210 ha, 0.4 %); Unincorporated NT (1,010 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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: 9 August 2017 → 13 August 2017.
  2. Start date: 21 July 2017 → 18 July 2017.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 July 2017 to 9 August 2017. 824 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 2015, 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.