Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Etheridge fire, 3 December 2016 Etheridge, Mareeba

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2016, 03:48 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2016 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 54,053 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 89th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 12 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
54,053ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
3 Dec 2016 – 10 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
3 Dec
2016
Heat detections
1,845
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
15.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec10 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

34567891011

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
54km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 12 Dec.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    32,144 ha reached on 3 Dec
    0.8 %
  2. Mareeba
    22,146 ha reached on 3 Dec
    0.4 %

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)
19 Nov 35.1 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Nov 35.7 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Nov 34.3 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Nov 35.3 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Nov 36.8 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Nov 38.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Nov 39.6 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
26 Nov 38.7 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Nov 37.0 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Nov 35.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Nov 34.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 21
30 Nov 34.6 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Dec 36.0 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
2 Dec 39.5 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Dec 39.9 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
4 Dec 37.3 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Dec 39.0 °C 12 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
6 Dec 38.3 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Dec 37.8 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Dec 38.8 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Dec 38.7 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Dec 37.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Dec after 35.2 °C 26 % 45 km/h 1.2 mm Very high 43
12 Dec after 34.4 °C 31 % 47 km/h 2.1 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Nov 2016
After · 17 Dec 2016

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 · 1,845Every 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 Etheridge fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 December 2016 and 10 December 2016: 8 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 54,053 hectares (540.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Etheridge (32,144 ha, 0.8 %); Mareeba (22,146 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.