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West Arnhem fire, 5 August 2021 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2021, 05:37 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2021 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 51 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 77,105 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 93th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3517 with a page). Number 7 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Compare with…

Suggestions: West Arnhem · 2019West Arnhem · 2017West Arnhem · 2019West Arnhem · 2016

Burnt area
77,105ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
51days
5 Aug 2021 – 24 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Aug
2021
Heat detections
3,917
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
743MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug24 Sept
25 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

5 Aug 2021 · 1,076 MW · 154 6 Aug 2021 · 1,330 MW · 228 7 Aug 2021 · 1,136 MW · 128 8 Aug 2021 · 1,042 MW · 115 9 Aug 2021 · 826 MW · 99 10 Aug 2021 · 399 MW · 54 11 Aug 2021 · 206 MW · 43 12 Aug 2021 · 322 MW · 46 13 Aug 2021 · 515 MW · 64 14 Aug 2021 · 20 MW · 7 15 Aug 2021 · 271 MW · 20 16 Aug 2021 · 203 MW · 46 17 Aug 2021 · 192 MW · 32 18 Aug 2021 · 172 MW · 18 19 Aug 2021 · 67 MW · 6 20 Aug 2021 · 361 MW · 33 21 Aug 2021 · 1,520 MW · 76 22 Aug 2021 · 458 MW · 48 23 Aug 2021 · 412 MW · 29 24 Aug 2021 · 103 MW · 24 25 Aug 2021 · 106 MW · 29 26 Aug 2021 · 655 MW · 30 27 Aug 2021 · 1,800 MW · 136 28 Aug 2021 · 4,542 MW · 215 29 Aug 2021 · 1,446 MW · 145 30 Aug 2021 · 2,753 MW · 186 31 Aug 2021 · 1,248 MW · 78 1 Sept 2021 · 614 MW · 72 2 Sept 2021 · 237 MW · 14 3 Sept 2021 · 239 MW · 26 4 Sept 2021 · 358 MW · 35 5 Sept 2021 · 334 MW · 62 6 Sept 2021 · 1,710 MW · 202 7 Sept 2021 · 3,438 MW · 222 8 Sept 2021 · 252 MW · 63 9 Sept 2021 · 84 MW · 54 10 Sept 2021 · 197 MW · 47 11 Sept 2021 · 764 MW · 76 12 Sept 2021 · 185 MW · 31 13 Sept 2021 · 467 MW · 44 14 Sept 2021 · 261 MW · 45 15 Sept 2021 · 92 MW · 31 16 Sept 2021 · 166 MW · 32 17 Sept 2021 · 278 MW · 36 18 Sept 2021 · 326 MW · 35 19 Sept 2021 · 746 MW · 67 20 Sept 2021 · 521 MW · 66 21 Sept 2021 · 1,596 MW · 191 22 Sept 2021 · 1,755 MW · 257 23 Sept 2021 · 699 MW · 94 24 Sept 2021 · 95 MW · 23 25 Sept 2021 · 25 MW · 3
5 Aug 13 Aug 21 Aug 28 Aug 29 Aug 6 Sept 14 Sept 22 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

37°high
59km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 3 Oct.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 20,612 ha in 2016, 16,075 ha in 2017, 46,617 ha in 2018, 50,784 ha in 2019, 18,687 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 71,044 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 49% of the area of London (771 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
    77,431 ha
    1.6 %

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)
5 Aug 31.5 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug 30.2 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Aug 30.7 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Aug 30.9 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Aug 31.6 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Aug 32.0 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Aug 33.4 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug 34.1 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Aug 33.4 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug 32.1 °C 39 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug 33.3 °C 34 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 34.3 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Aug 32.7 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 33.3 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Aug 33.5 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Aug 33.0 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Aug 33.8 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Aug 35.3 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug 34.3 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 32.7 °C 45 % 47 km/h 1.2 mm High 25
25 Aug 33.3 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug 33.7 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Aug 34.8 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Aug 34.4 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Aug 35.4 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Aug 36.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Aug 35.7 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Sept 35.0 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 33.8 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Sept 34.0 °C 40 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept 33.8 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Sept 34.5 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept 33.4 °C 25 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Sept 33.7 °C 24 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
8 Sept 33.8 °C 26 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Sept 33.8 °C 29 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Sept 33.9 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 34.1 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
12 Sept 34.9 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept 34.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Sept 35.1 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept 35.5 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept 34.4 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 34.6 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Sept 33.9 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Sept 33.6 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Sept 33.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Sept 36.8 °C 20 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Sept 33.7 °C 14 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
23 Sept 33.0 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Sept 33.8 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Sept after 35.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Sept after 35.6 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 46
27 Sept after 34.4 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Sept after 34.2 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
29 Sept after 34.8 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Sept after 35.5 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Oct after 36.0 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Oct after 34.2 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Oct after 36.4 °C 46 % 32 km/h 4.2 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2021
After · 1 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 5 August 2021 and 24 September 2021: 51 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 77,105 hectares (771.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (77,431 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 59 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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 October 2021 → 24 September 2021.
  2. Start date: 29 July 2021 → 5 August 2021.
  3. Last day with fire: 24 September 2021 → 1 October 2021.
  4. Start date: 5 August 2021 → 29 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
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 6 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.