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AU · Australia · –

West Arnhem fire, 17 July 2024 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2024, 04:21 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2024 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,554 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.

Burnt area
9,554ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
17 Jul 2024 – 19 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
17 Jul
2024
Heat detections
414
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
92MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul19 Aug
20 Aug 2024

How it evolved, day by day

17 Jul 2024 · 8 MW · 2 18 Jul 2024 · 81 MW · 11 19 Jul 2024 · 23 MW · 4 20 Jul 2024 · 212 MW · 11 21 Jul 2024 · 93 MW · 11 22 Jul 2024 · 407 MW · 24 23 Jul 2024 · 122 MW · 22 24 Jul 2024 · 40 MW · 8 25 Jul 2024 · 7 MW · 1 26 Jul 2024 · 11 MW · 2 28 Jul 2024 · 16 MW · 7 29 Jul 2024 · 69 MW · 10 30 Jul 2024 · 61 MW · 8 31 Jul 2024 · 121 MW · 19 1 Aug 2024 · 86 MW · 15 2 Aug 2024 · 39 MW · 6 3 Aug 2024 · 40 MW · 6 4 Aug 2024 · 48 MW · 9 5 Aug 2024 · 8 MW · 3 6 Aug 2024 · 9 MW · 7 7 Aug 2024 · 79 MW · 16 8 Aug 2024 · 101 MW · 15 9 Aug 2024 · 80 MW · 8 10 Aug 2024 · 18 MW · 6 11 Aug 2024 · 214 MW · 28 12 Aug 2024 · 311 MW · 42 13 Aug 2024 · 418 MW · 51 14 Aug 2024 · 192 MW · 24 15 Aug 2024 · 67 MW · 16 16 Aug 2024 · 30 MW · 7 17 Aug 2024 · 9 MW · 4 18 Aug 2024 · 88 MW · 7 19 Aug 2024 · 1 MW · 1 20 Aug 2024 · 11 MW · 3
17 Jul 24 Jul 1 Aug 8 Aug 13 Aug

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
46km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 884 ha in 2016, 8,182 ha in 2017, 5,737 ha in 2018, 6,787 ha in 2019, 2,655 ha in 2020, 1,686 ha in 2021, 5,026 ha in 2022, 4,572 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,563 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6% of the area of London (96 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
    9,522 ha reached on 17 Jul
    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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 7.6 % of the area in Australia

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
17 Jul 26.3 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Jul 25.2 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jul 23.9 °C 53 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Jul 26.4 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Jul 25.9 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Jul 26.0 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jul 26.2 °C 56 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jul 27.3 °C 56 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Jul 28.5 °C 64 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Jul 27.9 °C 67 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
27 Jul 27.6 °C 70 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Jul 28.8 °C 57 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
29 Jul 28.2 °C 55 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jul 27.7 °C 61 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
31 Jul 28.8 °C 53 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Aug 28.2 °C 56 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
2 Aug 28.0 °C 53 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Aug 27.9 °C 56 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Aug 27.6 °C 57 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Aug 27.9 °C 56 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Aug 28.1 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Aug 29.5 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Aug 29.5 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Aug 28.6 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Aug 28.5 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Aug 29.9 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Aug 29.4 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Aug 28.7 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Aug 28.2 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Aug 27.7 °C 52 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
16 Aug 28.0 °C 53 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Aug 28.3 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Aug 28.4 °C 58 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Aug 29.2 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
20 Aug after 29.6 °C 49 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Aug after 29.9 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Aug after 29.1 °C 58 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Aug after 30.2 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Aug after 30.4 °C 60 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Aug after 30.2 °C 54 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Aug after 29.6 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Aug after 28.4 °C 57 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Aug after 28.9 °C 56 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 Aug after 28.9 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jul 2024
After · 26 Aug 2024

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 13 August 2024 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
PM1026 µg/m³
Optical depth0.32
17 Jul25 Jul2 Aug10 Aug18 Aug
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 · 414Every 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 17 July 2024 to 19 August 2024 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 July 2024 to 18 August 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,554 hectares (95.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (9,522 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 18 August 2024 → 19 August 2024.
  2. Start date: 19 July 2024 → 17 July 2024.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 19 July 2024 to 18 August 2024. 414 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.
  • Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

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.