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Croydon fire, 5 December 2021 Croydon, Etheridge

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2021, 04:01 UTC

The fire started on 5 December 2021 in Croydon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,998 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 335th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 73 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
18,998ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
5 Dec 2021 – 19 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
5 Dec
2021
Heat detections
816
in a single hotspot: 188 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Dec 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Dec19 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

5789101112131415161819

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
46km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 25 Dec.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,878 ha in 2017, 156 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,903 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Croydon where it started
    18,077 ha reached on 5 Dec
    0.6 %
  2. Etheridge
    1,098 ha reached on 11 Dec
    0.0 %

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)
5 Dec 38.1 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Dec 36.1 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
7 Dec 36.0 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Dec 37.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
9 Dec 35.3 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
10 Dec 37.8 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Dec 38.7 °C 6 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Dec 38.9 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Dec 38.3 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Dec 36.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Dec 38.5 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Dec 37.3 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
17 Dec 36.1 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Dec 38.4 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Dec 38.1 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Dec after 36.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Dec after 38.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Dec after 37.8 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Dec after 37.8 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Dec after 36.7 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
25 Dec after 37.5 °C 27 % 37 km/h 2.9 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Nov 2021
After · 26 Dec 2021

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 · 816Every 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 5 December 2021 and 19 December 2021: 15 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 18,998 hectares (190.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Croydon (18,077 ha, 0.6 %); Etheridge (1,098 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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
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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.