Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Croydon fire, 11 December 2017 Croydon

Out · last detection 21 Dec 2017, 03:16 UTC

The fire started on 11 December 2017 in Croydon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,076 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1698th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 844 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
5,076ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
11 Dec 2017 – 21 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
11 Dec
2017
Heat detections
213
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Dec21 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

11131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
43km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 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
    5,126 ha reached on 10 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
11 Dec 38.6 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Dec 37.7 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Dec 38.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Dec 38.7 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Dec 38.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Dec 38.9 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Dec 39.0 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Dec 38.8 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Dec 39.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Dec 37.6 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Dec 37.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
22 Dec after 38.6 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 51
23 Dec after 37.6 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Dec after 38.8 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Dec after 40.1 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Dec after 40.3 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Dec after 40.1 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Dec after 38.3 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 44
29 Dec after 39.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Dec after 39.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Dec after 39.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Dec 2017
After · 28 Dec 2017

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 · 213Every 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 11 December 2017 and 21 December 2017: 11 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 5,076 hectares (50.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Croydon (5,126 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

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.