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West Arnhem fire, 3 October 2018 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2018, 04:21 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2018 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,425 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3127th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 835 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
5,425ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
3 Oct 2018 – 23 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Oct
2018
Heat detections
243
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131416171819202223

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
34km/h · peak gust
66%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 24 Oct.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,961 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,663 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. West Arnhem where it started
    5,405 ha reached on 3 Oct
    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)
3 Oct 27.7 °C 66 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Oct 27.1 °C 74 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
5 Oct 27.1 °C 72 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
6 Oct 27.3 °C 73 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Oct 27.1 °C 69 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
8 Oct 27.2 °C 71 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
9 Oct 27.4 °C 72 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
10 Oct 27.9 °C 69 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
11 Oct 27.6 °C 74 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Oct 28.2 °C 68 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Oct 27.5 °C 73 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Oct 28.0 °C 75 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Oct 27.7 °C 80 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Oct 27.5 °C 77 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
17 Oct 27.9 °C 71 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
18 Oct 28.1 °C 71 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
19 Oct 28.4 °C 76 % 22 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 13
20 Oct 28.5 °C 74 % 26 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 11
21 Oct 28.6 °C 75 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
22 Oct 28.9 °C 78 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
23 Oct 29.4 °C 76 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
24 Oct after 28.9 °C 72 % 29 km/h 2.6 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Sept 2018
After · 30 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 · 243Every 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 3 October 2018 and 23 October 2018: 21 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 5,425 hectares (54.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (5,405 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 66 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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.

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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.