West Arnhem fire, 30 August 2024 West Arnhem, Unincorporated NT
The fire started on 30 August 2024 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,591 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 949th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3518 with a page). Number 152 in Australia in 2024, of 638.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 14,591ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 30 Aug 2024 – 19 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 30 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 476
- in a single hotspot: 270 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 345MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 665 ha in 2016, 5,004 ha in 2017, 6,052 ha in 2018, 14,443 ha in 2019, 1,706 ha in 2020, 3,561 ha in 2021, 5,514 ha in 2022, 4,324 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,535 ha that had burned before.
- 5,964 ha West Arnhem fire, June 2019 14,370 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,121 ha West Arnhem fire, August 2019 5,207 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,503 ha Unincorporated NT fire, October 2019 20,050 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 366 ha West Arnhem fire, May 2018 7,282 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 318 ha Unincorporated NT fire, October 2021 5,368 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 started13,289 ha reached on 30 Aug0.3 %
-
1,368 ha reached on 14 Sept0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Aug | 35.4 °C | 30 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 Aug | 35.5 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Sept | 35.0 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Sept | 37.0 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Sept | 37.6 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 4 Sept | 36.1 °C | 26 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Sept | 35.2 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Sept | 35.6 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Sept | 36.9 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Sept | 36.3 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Sept | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 Sept | 37.4 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 11 Sept | 36.8 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Sept | 37.6 °C | 18 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 13 Sept | 36.0 °C | 23 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 14 Sept | 36.6 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 15 Sept | 36.0 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Sept | 36.0 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 2.2 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Sept | 30.1 °C | 53 % | 35 km/h | 7.4 mm | Very low 5 |
| 18 Sept | 32.5 °C | 46 % | 51 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 19 Sept | 35.2 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 20 Sept after | 37.0 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Sept after | 35.6 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Sept after | 37.4 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Sept after | 36.2 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Sept after | 35.9 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Sept after | 36.5 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Sept after | 37.4 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 27 Sept after | 36.8 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Sept after | 37.4 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 29 Sept after | 39.3 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 12 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 28 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 · 476Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 72,354 haWest Arnhem15 August 2026 · 62 days · 9 km away
- 22,277 haWest ArnhemSeptember 2024 · 29 days · 10 km away
- 29,269 haWest Arnhem6 July 2019 · 22 days · 21 km away
- 22,071 haWest Arnhem18 July 2017 · 27 days · 22 km away
- 25,303 haWest Arnhem31 August 2025 · 22 days · 26 km away
- 22,784 haWest Arnhem6 July 2026 · 13 days · 26 km away
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 30 August 2024 to 19 September 2024 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 August 2024 to 16 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,591 hectares (145.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: West Arnhem (13,289 ha, 0.3 %); Unincorporated NT (1,368 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.
- Last day with fire: 16 September 2024 → 19 September 2024.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 August 2024 to 16 September 2024. 476 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.