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West Arnhem fire, 7 August 2017 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2017, 16:49 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2017 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,036 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2745th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 672 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
6,036ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
7 Aug 2017 – 17 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
7 Aug
2017
Heat detections
272
in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug17 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151618

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
44km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,245 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,073 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. West Arnhem where it started
    6,074 ha reached on 7 Aug
    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)
7 Aug 34.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug 34.6 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Aug 33.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Aug 33.9 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 33.6 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Aug 34.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Aug 33.9 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug 34.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug 34.5 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Aug 34.6 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Aug 34.9 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug after 35.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug after 36.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug after 35.4 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Aug after 35.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug after 34.8 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug after 34.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Aug after 35.7 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug after 34.8 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Aug after 34.2 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Aug after 34.3 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2017
After · 24 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 · 272Every 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 7 August 2017 and 17 August 2017: 11 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 6,036 hectares (60.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (6,074 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.