Etheridge fire, 20 April 2017 Etheridge, Croydon
The fire started on 20 April 2017 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,440 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 1284th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 613 in Australia in 2017, of 862.
- Burnt area
- 6,440ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 20 Apr 2017 – 23 Apr 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 20 Apr
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 187
- in a single hotspot: 37 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.5GW
- 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 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
-
Etheridge where it started6,283 ha reached on 20 Apr0.2 %
-
179 ha reached on 20 Apr0.0 %
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 | 34.7 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Apr | 34.2 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 22 Apr | 34.0 °C | 30 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Apr | 34.3 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Apr after | 34.0 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Apr after | 34.9 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Apr after | 33.5 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Apr after | 32.7 °C | 20 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 28 Apr after | 30.3 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 29 Apr after | 31.0 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Apr after | 31.3 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 May after | 33.1 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 May after | 33.0 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 May after | 34.0 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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.
Detections table · 187Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 34,839 haCroydon3 November 2025 · 11 days · 13 km away
- 25,203 haEtheridge3 October 2025 · 5 days · 17 km away
- 26,909 haCroydon16 November 2016 · 8 days · 20 km away
- 51,880 haEtheridge29 October 2025 · 22 days · 31 km away
- 84,659 haCroydonSeptember 2023 · 9 days · 39 km away
- 29,994 haCroydonNovember 2023 · 6 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Etheridge fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 April 2017 and 23 April 2017: 4 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 6,440 hectares (64.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Etheridge (6,283 ha, 0.2 %); Croydon (179 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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
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.