West Arnhem fire, 18 October 2023 West Arnhem, Roper Gulf, Victoria Daly
The fire started on 18 October 2023 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,962 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 778th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3521 with a page). Number 332 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 16,962ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 18 Oct 2023 – 5 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- local government areas
- Started on
- 18 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 692
- in a single hotspot: 97 MW
- Danger at start
- 59
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 252MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 9 Nov.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,529 ha in 2016, 4,842 ha in 2017, 9,753 ha in 2018, 3,587 ha in 2019, 11,524 ha in 2020, 2,995 ha in 2021, 9,688 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,239 ha that had burned before.
- 2,891 ha West Arnhem fire, September 2018 8,562 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,290 ha West Arnhem fire, May 2022 7,077 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 904 ha Roper Gulf fire, August 2018 8,886 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 204 ha West Arnhem fire, October 2017 8,966 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 90 ha Victoria Daly fire, April 2018 14,568 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 48 ha Roper Gulf fire, October 2022 7,336 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
West Arnhem where it started12,603 ha reached on 18 Oct0.2 %
-
4,499 ha reached on 23 Oct0.0 %
-
1 ha reached on 31 Oct0.0 %
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 2025Inside 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct | 37.8 °C | 17 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 15 Oct | 37.6 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Oct | 36.8 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Oct | 37.3 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 18 Oct | 37.7 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 19 Oct | 38.1 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 20 Oct | 37.7 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 21 Oct | 37.8 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 Oct | 37.1 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Oct | 37.4 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Oct | 37.5 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Oct | 39.1 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Oct | 38.9 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 27 Oct | 37.7 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 28 Oct | 38.0 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 29 Oct | 38.3 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 30 Oct | 37.7 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 31 Oct | 38.4 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 1 Nov | 38.0 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 2 Nov | 40.0 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 3 Nov | 40.6 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 4 Nov | 38.7 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Nov | 38.9 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 6 Nov after | 36.3 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Nov after | 38.3 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Nov after | 37.5 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Nov after | 38.1 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 2.0 mm | High 34 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 24 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 692Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the West Arnhem fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 October 2023 and 5 November 2023: 19 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 16,962 hectares (169.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: West Arnhem (12,603 ha, 0.2 %); Roper Gulf (4,499 ha, 0.0 %); Victoria Daly (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 692 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.
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.