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West Arnhem fire, 21 August 2019 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2019, 04:33 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2019 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,972 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 580th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 156 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: West Arnhem · 2026West Arnhem · 2023West Arnhem · 2023

Burnt area
20,972ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
21 Aug 2019 – 17 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
21 Aug
2019
Heat detections
868
in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
236MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug17 Sept
18 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

21 Aug 2019 · 0 MW · 1 22 Aug 2019 · 7 MW · 1 25 Aug 2019 · 1 MW · 1 26 Aug 2019 · 4 MW · 1 27 Aug 2019 · 26 MW · 7 28 Aug 2019 · 438 MW · 45 29 Aug 2019 · 982 MW · 92 30 Aug 2019 · 512 MW · 80 31 Aug 2019 · 422 MW · 101 1 Sept 2019 · 799 MW · 66 2 Sept 2019 · 234 MW · 31 3 Sept 2019 · 268 MW · 22 4 Sept 2019 · 156 MW · 26 5 Sept 2019 · 383 MW · 60 6 Sept 2019 · 94 MW · 26 7 Sept 2019 · 214 MW · 31 8 Sept 2019 · 570 MW · 26 9 Sept 2019 · 117 MW · 36 10 Sept 2019 · 430 MW · 89 11 Sept 2019 · 291 MW · 51 12 Sept 2019 · 135 MW · 24 13 Sept 2019 · 49 MW · 13 14 Sept 2019 · 179 MW · 25 15 Sept 2019 · 23 MW · 7 16 Sept 2019 · 28 MW · 4 17 Sept 2019 · 9 MW · 1 18 Sept 2019 · 8 MW · 1
21 Aug 27 Aug 29 Aug 31 Aug 4 Sept 8 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

34°high
53km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,650 ha in 2016, 2,256 ha in 2017, 3,970 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,097 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (210 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
    21,110 ha reached on 21 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
21 Aug 29.5 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug 30.9 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Aug 30.6 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug 31.1 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Aug 31.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Aug 30.8 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug 31.1 °C 22 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Aug 31.5 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Aug 29.5 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Aug 30.3 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Aug 31.8 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept 32.0 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept 31.8 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Sept 31.7 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Sept 31.3 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept 30.8 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept 31.5 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Sept 31.6 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Sept 33.7 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Sept 32.1 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Sept 31.1 °C 20 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Sept 31.3 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Sept 31.0 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Sept 31.6 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Sept 32.0 °C 24 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Sept 32.2 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Sept 31.0 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept 32.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 32.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept after 33.1 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept after 32.6 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 32.3 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept after 32.4 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept after 31.5 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.5 mm High 38
24 Sept after 33.3 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Sept after 33.1 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Sept after 33.7 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Sept after 34.0 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 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 · 868Every 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 21 August 2019 to 17 September 2019 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2019 to 13 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 20,972 hectares (209.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (21,110 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 13 September 2019 → 17 September 2019.
  2. Start date: 27 August 2019 → 21 August 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 August 2019 to 13 September 2019. 868 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.