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West Arnhem fire, 6 July 2018 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2018, 15:34 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2018 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,995 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1298th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 339 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
10,995ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
6 Jul 2018 – 24 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
6 Jul
2018
Heat detections
411
in a single hotspot: 84 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul24 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112131415161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
45km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,008 ha in 2016, 5,191 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,613 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. West Arnhem where it started
    11,111 ha reached on 6 Jul
    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)
6 Jul 31.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Jul 29.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Jul 28.3 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Jul 29.3 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Jul 29.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jul 29.2 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Jul 29.0 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Jul 29.9 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jul 30.1 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul 30.5 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Jul 30.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Jul 31.5 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Jul 32.3 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jul 32.0 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jul 32.3 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jul 30.9 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jul 30.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jul 30.9 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul 31.5 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jul after 31.6 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul after 32.9 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jul after 30.8 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jul after 31.5 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jul after 30.8 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
30 Jul after 32.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Jul after 32.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug after 31.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug after 30.5 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Aug after 30.1 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jun 2018
After · 31 Jul 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 · 411Every 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 6 July 2018 and 24 July 2018: 19 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 10,995 hectares (110.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (11,111 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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
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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.

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.