Croydon fire, September 2023 Croydon, Etheridge
The fire started on 27 September 2023 in Croydon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 84,659 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 46th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 43 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 84,659ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 27 Sept 2023 – 5 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 27 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 2,666
- in a single hotspot: 197 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 18.0GW
- sum of detected power
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
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15,263 ha in 2016, 15,298 ha in 2017, 1,779 ha in 2018, 8,053 ha in 2019, 24,191 ha in 2020, 16,292 ha in 2021, 2,694 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 54,430 ha that had burned before.
- 7,389 ha Etheridge fire, September 2019 10,267 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,553 ha Croydon fire, November 2020 11,549 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,506 ha Croydon fire, December 2016 11,193 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,653 ha Croydon fire, November 2021 9,051 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,409 ha Croydon fire, November 2021 8,231 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,199 ha Croydon fire, December 2020 9,343 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,718 ha Croydon fire, October 2020 7,378 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 267 ha Croydon fire, December 2016 16,400 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Croydon where it started79,230 ha reached on 27 Sept2.7 %
-
5,831 ha reached on 27 Sept0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Sept | 34.4 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Sept | 36.9 °C | 9 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 29 Sept | 36.1 °C | 13 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 30 Sept | 34.5 °C | 18 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 1 Oct | 34.8 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 2 Oct | 35.0 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 3 Oct | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 4 Oct | 35.7 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 5 Oct | 36.2 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 6 Oct after | 37.2 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Oct after | 35.7 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 8 Oct after | 35.6 °C | 23 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 9 Oct after | 34.2 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 47 |
| 10 Oct after | 35.4 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 11 Oct after | 36.8 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Oct after | 37.3 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 13 Oct after | 38.1 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 14 Oct after | 37.3 °C | 14 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Oct after | 36.7 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
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 1 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 123 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily 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 · 2,666Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 27,695 haCroydon2 November 2024 · 8 days · 20 km away
- 31,548 haCroydon30 October 2025 · 14 days · 32 km away
- 35,599 haCroydon16 October 2025 · 28 days · 34 km away
- 25,203 haEtheridge3 October 2025 · 5 days · 34 km away
- 34,839 haCroydon3 November 2025 · 11 days · 39 km away
- 180,508 haCroydon10 October 2025 · 36 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Croydon fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2023 and 5 October 2023: 9 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 84,659 hectares (846.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Croydon (79,230 ha, 2.7 %); Etheridge (5,831 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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
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.