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Croydon fire, 6 November 2016 Croydon

Out · last detection 24 Nov 2016, 04:06 UTC

The fire started on 6 November 2016 in Croydon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 58,423 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 83th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 11 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
58,423ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
6 Nov 2016 – 24 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
6 Nov
2016
Heat detections
2,294
in a single hotspot: 229 MW
Danger at start
74
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
24.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Nov24 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
52km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Croydon where it started
    58,982 ha reached on 3 Nov
    2.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
2 Nov 40.1 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
3 Nov 40.1 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
4 Nov 38.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Nov 36.9 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Nov 36.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 2.6 mm High 25
7 Nov 37.7 °C 24 % 40 km/h 4.7 mm High 22
8 Nov 35.6 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Nov 38.1 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Nov 38.5 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Nov 39.7 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Nov 39.6 °C 24 % 45 km/h 2.7 mm High 32
13 Nov 34.6 °C 39 % 52 km/h 6.5 mm Moderate 13
14 Nov 32.7 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Nov 35.8 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Nov 38.1 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Nov 38.0 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Nov 35.7 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Nov 36.9 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Nov 36.6 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Nov 36.0 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Nov 36.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Nov 38.7 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Nov 38.8 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Nov after 38.4 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
26 Nov after 38.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Nov after 37.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Nov after 36.7 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Nov after 36.9 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Nov after 37.0 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Dec after 37.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Dec after 38.1 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 49
3 Dec after 42.0 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Dec after 41.3 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
5 Dec after 42.1 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
6 Dec after 42.0 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Oct 2016
After · 1 Dec 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 2,294Every 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 Croydon fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 November 2016 and 24 November 2016: 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 58,423 hectares (584.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Croydon (58,982 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very 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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.