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Croydon fire, 1 October 2023 Croydon

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2023, 03:41 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2023 in Croydon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,262 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1324th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 969 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
6,262ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
1 Oct 2023 – 7 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
1 Oct
2023
Heat detections
253
in a single hotspot: 129 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1234567

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
45km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,880 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Croydon where it started
    6,291 ha reached on 1 Oct
    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)
30 Sept 35.1 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
1 Oct 35.4 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Oct 35.1 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Oct 35.8 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Oct 35.0 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Oct 36.7 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Oct 37.2 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Oct 35.8 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Oct after 35.3 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Oct after 34.2 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Oct after 35.4 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Oct after 37.5 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Oct after 37.2 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Oct after 39.2 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Oct after 38.1 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Oct after 37.3 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
16 Oct after 37.4 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Oct after 38.8 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Oct after 38.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Oct after 36.8 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Oct after 37.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Oct after 37.1 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Oct after 36.7 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Oct after 40.0 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2023
After · 14 Oct 2023

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 30 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 128 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 54: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak128 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10202 µg/m³
Optical depth1.66
293012345678910
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 · 253Every 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 1 October 2023 and 7 October 2023: 7 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 6,262 hectares (62.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Croydon (6,291 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.