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Etheridge fire, 20 April 2017 Etheridge

Out · last detection 24 Apr 2017, 16:25 UTC

The fire started on 20 April 2017 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,519 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1263th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 602 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
6,519ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
20 Apr 2017 – 24 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
20 Apr
2017
Heat detections
247
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Apr 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Apr24 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
50km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    6,546 ha reached on 20 Apr
    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)
20 Apr 34.0 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Apr 33.5 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Apr 33.4 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Apr 33.6 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Apr 33.4 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Apr after 34.3 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Apr after 33.0 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Apr after 32.6 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Apr after 30.1 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Apr after 30.6 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Apr after 30.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 May after 32.4 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 May after 32.3 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 May after 33.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 May after 33.1 °C 25 % 41 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 · 13 Apr 2017
After · 1 May 2017

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 · 247Every 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 20 April 2017 and 24 April 2017: 5 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 6,519 hectares (65.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (6,546 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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
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.