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West Arnhem fire, 11 September 2018 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 6 Oct 2018, 04:40 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2018 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 24,966 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 464th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3521 with a page). Number 100 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Compare with…

Suggestions: West Arnhem · 2019West Arnhem · 2023West Arnhem · 2018West Arnhem · 2026

Burnt area
24,966ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
11 Sept 2018 – 5 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Sept
2018
Heat detections
1,057
in a single hotspot: 334 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
580MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept5 Oct
6 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

12 Sept 2018 · 58 MW · 4 13 Sept 2018 · 99 MW · 18 14 Sept 2018 · 1,550 MW · 44 15 Sept 2018 · 1,214 MW · 46 16 Sept 2018 · 724 MW · 55 17 Sept 2018 · 454 MW · 67 18 Sept 2018 · 711 MW · 96 19 Sept 2018 · 656 MW · 61 20 Sept 2018 · 894 MW · 74 21 Sept 2018 · 467 MW · 48 22 Sept 2018 · 208 MW · 35 23 Sept 2018 · 138 MW · 45 24 Sept 2018 · 175 MW · 42 25 Sept 2018 · 1,635 MW · 110 26 Sept 2018 · 1,178 MW · 48 27 Sept 2018 · 654 MW · 53 28 Sept 2018 · 395 MW · 63 29 Sept 2018 · 1,117 MW · 51 30 Sept 2018 · 295 MW · 30 1 Oct 2018 · 85 MW · 15 2 Oct 2018 · 13 MW · 2 3 Oct 2018 · 100 MW · 16 4 Oct 2018 · 1,624 MW · 28 5 Oct 2018 · 45 MW · 4 6 Oct 2018 · 18 MW · 2
12 Sept 16 Sept 20 Sept 24 Sept 25 Sept 28 Sept 2 Oct 6 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
54km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 15 Oct.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 503 ha in 2016, 5,662 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,827 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 16% of the area of London (250 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
    25,111 ha reached on 12 Sept
    0.5 %

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)
11 Sept 34.2 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Sept 35.3 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept 35.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept 36.5 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 36.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept 36.7 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Sept 36.6 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Sept 37.8 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept 35.5 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Sept 35.2 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Sept 35.7 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Sept 37.0 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Sept 36.5 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Sept 35.6 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Sept 36.0 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Sept 35.8 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Sept 36.0 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Sept 35.9 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Sept 35.2 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Sept 35.8 °C 16 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Oct 32.8 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Oct 33.7 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Oct 37.2 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Oct 37.4 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Oct 36.4 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Oct after 37.5 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Oct after 38.3 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Oct after 37.2 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Oct after 37.0 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Oct after 37.3 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Oct after 37.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Oct after 38.9 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Oct after 37.5 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Oct after 37.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct after 35.4 °C 37 % 28 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2018
After · 12 Oct 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 · 1,057Every 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 11 September 2018 to 5 October 2018 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 September 2018 to 5 October 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 24,966 hectares (249.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (25,111 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 54 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 12 September 2018 → 11 September 2018.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 September 2018 to 5 October 2018. 1,057 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.