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West Arnhem fire, 22 August 2019 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2019, 04:53 UTC

The fire started on 22 August 2019 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,072 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1904th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 471 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

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

Burnt area
8,072ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
22 Aug 2019 – 17 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Aug
2019
Heat detections
394
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Average daily power
101MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug17 Sept
17 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

22 Aug 2019 · 117 MW · 7 23 Aug 2019 · 134 MW · 17 24 Aug 2019 · 114 MW · 15 25 Aug 2019 · 5 MW · 4 26 Aug 2019 · 104 MW · 20 27 Aug 2019 · 108 MW · 17 28 Aug 2019 · 126 MW · 14 29 Aug 2019 · 160 MW · 29 30 Aug 2019 · 157 MW · 24 31 Aug 2019 · 32 MW · 12 1 Sept 2019 · 77 MW · 10 2 Sept 2019 · 53 MW · 9 3 Sept 2019 · 46 MW · 7 5 Sept 2019 · 33 MW · 7 6 Sept 2019 · 84 MW · 12 7 Sept 2019 · 79 MW · 14 8 Sept 2019 · 145 MW · 18 9 Sept 2019 · 42 MW · 12 10 Sept 2019 · 93 MW · 23 11 Sept 2019 · 341 MW · 40 12 Sept 2019 · 243 MW · 34 13 Sept 2019 · 203 MW · 21 14 Sept 2019 · 113 MW · 22 15 Sept 2019 · 4 MW · 1 16 Sept 2019 · 5 MW · 1 17 Sept 2019 · 9 MW · 4
22 Aug 26 Aug 30 Aug 3 Sept 8 Sept 11 Sept 12 Sept 16 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
51km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,971 ha in 2016, 4,060 ha in 2017, 6,062 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,381 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.1% of the area of London (81 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
    7,947 ha reached on 22 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
22 Aug 26.5 °C 51 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Aug 26.1 °C 60 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Aug 26.6 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Aug 25.8 °C 60 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Aug 26.3 °C 52 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Aug 27.4 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Aug 28.3 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 27.8 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug 26.7 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Aug 26.9 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Sept 27.0 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Sept 26.5 °C 57 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Sept 26.4 °C 56 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept 26.4 °C 50 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Sept 25.9 °C 60 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Sept 26.4 °C 67 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Sept 26.3 °C 66 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Sept 27.8 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Sept 28.5 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Sept 27.0 °C 37 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept 26.2 °C 43 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Sept 26.1 °C 51 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept 26.3 °C 47 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Sept 26.6 °C 46 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept 25.7 °C 52 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Sept 25.7 °C 62 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Sept 26.3 °C 62 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Sept after 27.2 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Sept after 27.0 °C 58 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Sept after 26.6 °C 64 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Sept after 27.0 °C 66 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
22 Sept after 27.6 °C 69 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Sept after 27.6 °C 67 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Sept after 27.6 °C 68 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Sept after 27.6 °C 63 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
26 Sept after 27.4 °C 59 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Sept after 27.8 °C 59 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2019
After · 24 Sept 2019

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 · 394Every 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 22 August 2019 to 17 September 2019 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 August 2019 to 16 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,072 hectares (80.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (7,947 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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 · 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. Last day with fire: 16 September 2019 → 17 September 2019.

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 22 August 2019 to 16 September 2019. 394 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.