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Etheridge fire, 15 November 2017 Etheridge

Out · last detection 21 Nov 2017, 04:19 UTC

The fire started on 15 November 2017 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,003 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 456th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 181 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
15,003ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
15 Nov 2017 – 20 Nov 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Nov
2017
Heat detections
497
in a single hotspot: 175 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Nov 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Nov20 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021

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
55km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 30 Nov.

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
    15,045 ha reached on 11 Nov
    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)
8 Nov 39.4 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Nov 33.8 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
10 Nov 35.1 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Nov 35.3 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Nov 35.8 °C 18 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Nov 34.8 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
14 Nov 34.9 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Nov 36.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Nov 37.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Nov 37.0 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Nov 37.8 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Nov 39.0 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Nov 38.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 44
21 Nov after 35.0 °C 29 % 39 km/h 5.2 mm Moderate 16
22 Nov after 34.7 °C 36 % 36 km/h 8.0 mm Low 7
23 Nov after 33.9 °C 35 % 29 km/h 1.8 mm Low 11
24 Nov after 34.6 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 Nov after 36.7 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Nov after 39.2 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Nov after 37.7 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Nov after 36.7 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
29 Nov after 37.8 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Nov after 37.6 °C 30 % 32 km/h 1.6 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Nov 2017
After · 27 Nov 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 · 497Every 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 15 November 2017 and 20 November 2017: 6 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 15,003 hectares (150.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (15,045 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.