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West Arnhem fire, 2 August 2021 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2021, 15:47 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2021 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 58 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 48,961 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 179th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3511 with a page). Number 14 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Compare with…

Suggestions: West Arnhem · 2019West Arnhem · 2019West Arnhem · 2019West Arnhem · 2021

Burnt area
48,961ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
58days
2 Aug 2021 – 28 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
2 Aug
2021
Heat detections
2,565
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
413MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug28 Sept
28 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

2 Aug 2021 · 224 MW · 7 3 Aug 2021 · 17 MW · 3 5 Aug 2021 · 78 MW · 14 6 Aug 2021 · 231 MW · 38 7 Aug 2021 · 142 MW · 19 8 Aug 2021 · 335 MW · 24 9 Aug 2021 · 58 MW · 8 10 Aug 2021 · 193 MW · 18 11 Aug 2021 · 157 MW · 26 12 Aug 2021 · 270 MW · 20 13 Aug 2021 · 1,082 MW · 80 14 Aug 2021 · 185 MW · 33 15 Aug 2021 · 147 MW · 28 16 Aug 2021 · 2,020 MW · 126 17 Aug 2021 · 810 MW · 87 18 Aug 2021 · 572 MW · 62 19 Aug 2021 · 84 MW · 16 20 Aug 2021 · 793 MW · 82 21 Aug 2021 · 1,245 MW · 107 22 Aug 2021 · 927 MW · 67 23 Aug 2021 · 162 MW · 16 24 Aug 2021 · 6 MW · 4 25 Aug 2021 · 204 MW · 52 26 Aug 2021 · 456 MW · 58 27 Aug 2021 · 905 MW · 109 28 Aug 2021 · 362 MW · 45 29 Aug 2021 · 399 MW · 79 30 Aug 2021 · 656 MW · 55 31 Aug 2021 · 234 MW · 40 1 Sept 2021 · 177 MW · 31 2 Sept 2021 · 6 MW · 3 3 Sept 2021 · 139 MW · 15 4 Sept 2021 · 13 MW · 2 5 Sept 2021 · 164 MW · 20 6 Sept 2021 · 830 MW · 91 7 Sept 2021 · 732 MW · 52 8 Sept 2021 · 317 MW · 43 9 Sept 2021 · 400 MW · 57 10 Sept 2021 · 198 MW · 33 11 Sept 2021 · 201 MW · 36 12 Sept 2021 · 90 MW · 20 13 Sept 2021 · 556 MW · 28 14 Sept 2021 · 76 MW · 13 15 Sept 2021 · 71 MW · 10 16 Sept 2021 · 75 MW · 14 17 Sept 2021 · 258 MW · 30 18 Sept 2021 · 204 MW · 29 19 Sept 2021 · 848 MW · 78 20 Sept 2021 · 1,404 MW · 95 21 Sept 2021 · 279 MW · 45 22 Sept 2021 · 1,799 MW · 207 23 Sept 2021 · 1,020 MW · 155 24 Sept 2021 · 397 MW · 63 25 Sept 2021 · 42 MW · 9 26 Sept 2021 · 109 MW · 24 27 Sept 2021 · 55 MW · 15 28 Sept 2021 · 127 MW · 24
2 Aug 12 Aug 16 Aug 21 Aug 30 Aug 8 Sept 17 Sept 26 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
62km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 3 Oct.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 31% of the area of London (490 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
    49,156 ha
    1.0 %

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)
2 Aug 30.3 °C 49 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Aug 30.5 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
4 Aug 31.2 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Aug 31.2 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug 29.9 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Aug 28.9 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug 29.4 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Aug 29.3 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug 30.0 °C 44 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug 30.6 °C 47 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Aug 31.3 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug 31.7 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Aug 29.8 °C 49 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Aug 31.0 °C 45 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Aug 32.6 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug 31.3 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug 31.0 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Aug 30.7 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Aug 31.3 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug 32.1 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug 32.5 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug 31.2 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
24 Aug 31.8 °C 49 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm High 27
25 Aug 31.3 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Aug 32.1 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug 32.9 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Aug 32.8 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug 33.1 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug 34.0 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug 32.6 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Sept 31.6 °C 46 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Sept 30.9 °C 53 % 52 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
3 Sept 31.5 °C 49 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 30.9 °C 49 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
5 Sept 31.9 °C 43 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 32.3 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 31.4 °C 28 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 31.5 °C 32 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Sept 29.9 °C 42 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept 31.4 °C 42 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Sept 31.3 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
12 Sept 31.9 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
13 Sept 32.0 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
14 Sept 32.2 °C 49 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Sept 32.9 °C 44 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Sept 31.7 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Sept 31.4 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept 30.7 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept 30.1 °C 46 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Sept 31.3 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Sept 33.8 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Sept 33.1 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Sept 30.1 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Sept 30.2 °C 40 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
25 Sept 31.2 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Sept 32.2 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept 30.9 °C 54 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Sept 32.0 °C 48 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Sept after 31.8 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Sept after 31.8 °C 48 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Oct after 32.1 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Oct after 31.4 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Oct after 33.2 °C 58 % 36 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2021
After · 5 Oct 2021

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 · 0Every 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 2 August 2021 and 28 September 2021: 58 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 48,961 hectares (489.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (49,156 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 62 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 · 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: 2 August 2021 → 30 July 2021.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.