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West Arnhem fire, 11 May 2018 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 1 Jun 2018, 04:20 UTC

The fire started on 11 May 2018 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 64,095 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 125th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 28 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Compare with…

Suggestions: West Arnhem · 2016West Arnhem · 2026West Arnhem · 2017West Arnhem · 2018

Burnt area
64,095ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
11 May 2018 – 1 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 May
2018
Heat detections
3,199
in a single hotspot: 156 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
759MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 May1 Jun
1 Jun 2018

How it evolved, day by day

11 May 2018 · 5,540 MW · 406 12 May 2018 · 2,431 MW · 429 13 May 2018 · 615 MW · 316 14 May 2018 · 2,684 MW · 576 15 May 2018 · 1,862 MW · 433 16 May 2018 · 194 MW · 117 17 May 2018 · 1,196 MW · 297 18 May 2018 · 484 MW · 160 19 May 2018 · 395 MW · 122 20 May 2018 · 430 MW · 117 21 May 2018 · 315 MW · 52 22 May 2018 · 136 MW · 31 23 May 2018 · 124 MW · 45 24 May 2018 · 99 MW · 31 25 May 2018 · 57 MW · 14 26 May 2018 · 26 MW · 10 27 May 2018 · 27 MW · 7 28 May 2018 · 2 MW · 2 29 May 2018 · 16 MW · 9 30 May 2018 · 11 MW · 6 31 May 2018 · 36 MW · 14 1 Jun 2018 · 25 MW · 5
11 May 15 May 19 May 23 May 27 May 31 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

33°high
68km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,120 ha in 2016, 4,950 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,483 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 40% of the area of London (641 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
    64,611 ha reached on 11 May
    1.3 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
10 May 32.5 °C 30 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 May 31.5 °C 26 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 May 29.5 °C 27 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 May 29.1 °C 24 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 May 28.7 °C 22 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 May 28.6 °C 22 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 May 27.9 °C 19 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 May 27.7 °C 21 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 May 28.4 °C 32 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 May 28.6 °C 29 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 May 29.9 °C 36 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 May 33.0 °C 30 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 May 29.6 °C 28 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 May 30.4 °C 30 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 May 31.0 °C 38 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 May 32.6 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 May 31.8 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 May 30.9 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 May 30.8 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 May 30.1 °C 27 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 May 30.3 °C 32 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 May 32.0 °C 29 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Jun 29.7 °C 34 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jun after 29.3 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Jun after 28.4 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jun after 27.3 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Jun after 27.0 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Jun after 27.7 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jun after 28.8 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Jun after 29.1 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Jun after 30.2 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jun after 30.5 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jun after 30.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Jun after 30.9 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Jun after 30.9 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Jun after 31.0 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jun after 29.9 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jun after 30.5 °C 32 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Jun after 29.0 °C 24 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 May 2018
After · 8 Jun 2018

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 · 3,199Every 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 11 May 2018 and 1 June 2018: 22 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 64,095 hectares (641.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (64,611 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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
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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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,199 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 2020, 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.