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AU · Australia · –

West Arnhem fire, 20 June 2026 West Arnhem

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2026, 05:27 UTC

The fire started on 20 June 2026 in West Arnhem, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,351 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.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
12,351ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
20 Jun 2026 – 21 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
20 Jun
2026
Heat detections
594
in a single hotspot: 80 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
164MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jun21 Jul
22 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

21 Jun 2026 · 119 MW · 8 22 Jun 2026 · 16 MW · 5 23 Jun 2026 · 25 MW · 3 24 Jun 2026 · 1,161 MW · 109 25 Jun 2026 · 185 MW · 27 26 Jun 2026 · 72 MW · 11 27 Jun 2026 · 129 MW · 18 28 Jun 2026 · 38 MW · 9 30 Jun 2026 · 1 MW · 1 1 Jul 2026 · 3 MW · 4 2 Jul 2026 · 19 MW · 3 3 Jul 2026 · 52 MW · 11 4 Jul 2026 · 86 MW · 13 5 Jul 2026 · 40 MW · 9 6 Jul 2026 · 87 MW · 16 7 Jul 2026 · 50 MW · 7 8 Jul 2026 · 35 MW · 9 10 Jul 2026 · 944 MW · 89 11 Jul 2026 · 244 MW · 22 12 Jul 2026 · 121 MW · 15 13 Jul 2026 · 69 MW · 13 14 Jul 2026 · 38 MW · 11 15 Jul 2026 · 42 MW · 9 16 Jul 2026 · 69 MW · 13 17 Jul 2026 · 72 MW · 23 18 Jul 2026 · 744 MW · 60 19 Jul 2026 · 310 MW · 45 20 Jul 2026 · 127 MW · 25 21 Jul 2026 · 17 MW · 5 22 Jul 2026 · 2 MW · 1
24 Jun 4 Jul 11 Jul 17 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
50km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 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: 2,986 ha in 2016, 7,079 ha in 2017, 6,209 ha in 2018, 5,209 ha in 2019, 5,954 ha in 2020, 7,371 ha in 2021, 5,233 ha in 2022, 9,259 ha in 2023, 2,644 ha in 2024, 3,959 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,478 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.8% of the area of London (124 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
    12,462 ha reached on 21 Jun
    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)
20 Jun 30.6 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Jun 31.2 °C 41 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jun 31.1 °C 42 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jun 30.8 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jun 31.2 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jun 31.0 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jun 31.4 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jun 30.5 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jun 31.0 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jun 30.2 °C 56 % 33 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
30 Jun 31.7 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Jul 30.7 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
2 Jul 31.6 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Jul 31.5 °C 44 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Jul 31.0 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Jul 31.6 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Jul 31.1 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jul 31.4 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Jul 31.8 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Jul 32.0 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Jul 32.0 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Jul 32.1 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jul 31.0 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Jul 31.4 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Jul 30.7 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul 30.9 °C 37 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jul 31.5 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Jul 30.1 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jul 29.2 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul 29.1 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Jul 29.3 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Jul 30.2 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul after 30.0 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
23 Jul after 31.1 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul after 30.1 °C 41 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jul after 30.2 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul after 29.7 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Jul after 30.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul after 31.4 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul after 30.6 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul after 30.4 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
31 Jul after 30.1 °C 42 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jun 2026
After · 28 Jul 2026

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 20 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak61 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1065 µg/m³
Optical depth0.78
14 Jun23 Jun2 Jul11 Jul20 Jul
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 · 594Every 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 20 June 2026 to 21 July 2026 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 June 2026 to 14 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,351 hectares (123.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Arnhem (12,462 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 14 July 2026 → 21 July 2026.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 June 2026 to 14 July 2026. 594 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.