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West Arnhem fire, 6 August 2023 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2023, 05:31 UTC

The fire started on 6 August 2023 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,980 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 922th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3514 with a page). Number 371 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Compare with…

Suggestions: West Arnhem · 2020West Arnhem · 2019West Arnhem · 2018West Arnhem · 2018

Burnt area
14,980ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
36days
6 Aug 2023 – 10 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
6 Aug
2023
Heat detections
628
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
176MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Aug10 Sept
10 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

6 Aug 2023 · 122 MW · 10 7 Aug 2023 · 65 MW · 12 8 Aug 2023 · 18 MW · 2 9 Aug 2023 · 21 MW · 4 10 Aug 2023 · 1 MW · 1 13 Aug 2023 · 109 MW · 14 14 Aug 2023 · 40 MW · 6 15 Aug 2023 · 74 MW · 12 16 Aug 2023 · 336 MW · 26 17 Aug 2023 · 145 MW · 22 18 Aug 2023 · 111 MW · 15 19 Aug 2023 · 46 MW · 2 20 Aug 2023 · 103 MW · 15 21 Aug 2023 · 277 MW · 24 22 Aug 2023 · 437 MW · 51 23 Aug 2023 · 264 MW · 34 24 Aug 2023 · 738 MW · 55 25 Aug 2023 · 802 MW · 52 26 Aug 2023 · 233 MW · 58 27 Aug 2023 · 450 MW · 60 28 Aug 2023 · 179 MW · 45 29 Aug 2023 · 380 MW · 43 30 Aug 2023 · 50 MW · 14 31 Aug 2023 · 187 MW · 16 1 Sept 2023 · 50 MW · 7 2 Sept 2023 · 11 MW · 2 3 Sept 2023 · 22 MW · 4 6 Sept 2023 · 35 MW · 5 7 Sept 2023 · 44 MW · 5 8 Sept 2023 · 50 MW · 8 10 Sept 2023 · 57 MW · 4
6 Aug 13 Aug 18 Aug 23 Aug 25 Aug 28 Aug 2 Sept 10 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

36°high
56km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,011 ha in 2016, 6,367 ha in 2017, 9,700 ha in 2018, 6,297 ha in 2019, 5,730 ha in 2020, 8,905 ha in 2021, 3,695 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,936 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.5% of the area of London (150 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
    15,064 ha reached on 6 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
6 Aug 31.0 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Aug 30.2 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 30.3 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Aug 31.2 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug 30.8 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug 29.3 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
12 Aug 29.8 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Aug 31.7 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug 31.2 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug 31.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug 31.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug 33.0 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug 34.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug 32.8 °C 28 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Aug 32.6 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug 32.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug 31.9 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Aug 33.6 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug 34.1 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 33.9 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug 33.2 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug 32.9 °C 28 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Aug 32.8 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Aug 33.2 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug 32.2 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug 33.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept 32.3 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept 32.7 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept 32.1 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 32.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept 32.9 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 33.3 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 34.1 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 34.9 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 35.9 °C 33 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 35.5 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept after 35.0 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept after 32.6 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept after 34.0 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Sept after 31.8 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Sept after 33.2 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 44
16 Sept after 31.0 °C 34 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept after 30.8 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 30.2 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
19 Sept after 32.1 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Sept after 33.5 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jul 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 31 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
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 · 628Every 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 6 August 2023 to 10 September 2023 (36 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 14,980 hectares (149.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (15,064 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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: 3 September 2023 → 10 September 2023.
  2. Start date: 13 August 2023 → 6 August 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 August 2023 to 3 September 2023. 628 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.