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West Arnhem fire, 13 August 2023 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2023, 04:47 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2023 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,822 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1492th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3508 with a page). Number 573 in Australia in 2023, of 1237.

Compare with…

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

Burnt area
9,822ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
13 Aug 2023 – 10 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
13 Aug
2023
Heat detections
332
in a single hotspot: 99 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
91MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug10 Sept
7 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

13 Aug 2023 · 9 MW · 3 14 Aug 2023 · 26 MW · 14 15 Aug 2023 · 35 MW · 12 16 Aug 2023 · 98 MW · 16 17 Aug 2023 · 247 MW · 20 18 Aug 2023 · 57 MW · 9 19 Aug 2023 · 81 MW · 22 20 Aug 2023 · 107 MW · 24 21 Aug 2023 · 244 MW · 26 22 Aug 2023 · 478 MW · 39 23 Aug 2023 · 145 MW · 20 24 Aug 2023 · 19 MW · 6 25 Aug 2023 · 104 MW · 18 26 Aug 2023 · 58 MW · 18 27 Aug 2023 · 167 MW · 36 28 Aug 2023 · 178 MW · 22 29 Aug 2023 · 45 MW · 8 30 Aug 2023 · 4 MW · 1 31 Aug 2023 · 12 MW · 5 1 Sept 2023 · 27 MW · 6 2 Sept 2023 · 19 MW · 3 3 Sept 2023 · 12 MW · 2 4 Sept 2023 · 1 MW · 1 7 Sept 2023 · 4 MW · 1
13 Aug 17 Aug 21 Aug 22 Aug 25 Aug 29 Aug 2 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
57km/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

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,210 ha in 2016, 951 ha in 2017, 1,692 ha in 2018, 2,708 ha in 2019, 318 ha in 2020, 2,723 ha in 2021, 1,252 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,637 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.2% of the area of London (98 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
    9,884 ha reached on 13 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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
13 Aug 32.0 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug 31.4 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug 31.2 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Aug 32.0 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Aug 32.3 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Aug 33.2 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug 31.8 °C 29 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Aug 31.1 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug 31.2 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug 31.7 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug 32.3 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Aug 32.7 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug 32.8 °C 21 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Aug 32.2 °C 22 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Aug 32.4 °C 30 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Aug 32.6 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Aug 32.6 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Aug 32.3 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 33.5 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Sept 32.4 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Sept 32.5 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Sept 32.5 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Sept 32.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Sept 33.2 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Sept 33.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Sept 34.4 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Sept 35.5 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Sept 34.3 °C 31 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Sept 35.2 °C 28 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept after 34.1 °C 24 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Sept after 32.8 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Sept after 33.0 °C 25 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Sept after 33.2 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept after 32.8 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept after 33.0 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Sept after 31.5 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2023
After · 17 Sept 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123456
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 332Every 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 13 August 2023 to 10 September 2023 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 August 2023 to 3 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,822 hectares (98.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (9,884 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 3 September 2023 → 10 September 2023.

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 13 August 2023 to 3 September 2023. 332 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 2025, 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.