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Etheridge fire, 3 December 2017 Etheridge

Out · last detection 10 Dec 2017, 16:13 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2017 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,775 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 887th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 407 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
8,775ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
3 Dec 2017 – 10 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Dec
2017
Heat detections
348
in a single hotspot: 209 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec10 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

345678910

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
47km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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
    8,783 ha reached on 3 Dec
    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)
30 Nov 37.3 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm High 29
1 Dec 36.5 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Dec 35.1 °C 42 % 32 km/h 5.5 mm Low 7
3 Dec 35.3 °C 41 % 30 km/h 1.7 mm Low 11
4 Dec 38.1 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Dec 37.1 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Dec 38.9 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Dec 39.6 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Dec 38.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Dec 39.7 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Dec 40.3 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Dec after 38.9 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Dec after 38.1 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Dec after 37.9 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Dec after 39.0 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Dec after 38.7 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Dec after 39.0 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Dec after 38.8 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Dec after 39.2 °C 7 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Dec after 38.4 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Dec after 37.7 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Nov 2017
After · 17 Dec 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 · 348Every 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 2017 and 10 December 2017: 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 8,775 hectares (87.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (8,783 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.