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Croydon fire, 10 October 2023 Croydon

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2023, 04:19 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2023 in Croydon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,124 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1360th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 994 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
6,124ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
10 Oct 2023 – 21 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
10 Oct
2023
Heat detections
226
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314151718192021

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
50km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,231 ha in 2016, 129 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Croydon where it started
    6,155 ha reached on 3 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)
3 Oct 35.7 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Oct 34.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Oct 35.9 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
6 Oct 36.6 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Oct 35.5 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 59
8 Oct 35.3 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Oct 34.5 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Oct 35.0 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Oct 37.3 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Oct 37.2 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Oct 39.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Oct 38.0 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
15 Oct 37.5 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
16 Oct 37.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Oct 38.8 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
18 Oct 38.2 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
19 Oct 36.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Oct 37.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Oct 37.6 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Oct after 37.1 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
23 Oct after 40.4 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Oct after 40.6 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Oct after 40.2 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
26 Oct after 39.2 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
27 Oct after 38.0 °C 10 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
28 Oct after 38.8 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
29 Oct after 36.5 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Oct after 37.1 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Oct after 38.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Nov after 40.8 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Nov after 40.5 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Nov after 39.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Nov after 38.8 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Oct 2023
After · 28 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 19 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1084 µg/m³
Optical depth0.56
89101112131415161718192021222324
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 · 226Every 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 10 October 2023 and 21 October 2023: 12 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 6,124 hectares (61.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Croydon (6,155 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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.