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Etheridge fire, 5 December 2017 Etheridge

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2017, 03:53 UTC

The fire started on 5 December 2017 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,590 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1512th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 741 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
5,590ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
5 Dec 2017 – 19 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Dec
2017
Heat detections
318
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Dec19 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
46km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 461 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    5,638 ha reached on 5 Dec
    0.1 %

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)
5 Dec 32.4 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Dec 34.7 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Dec 36.8 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Dec 36.5 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Dec 35.8 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
10 Dec 35.5 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Dec 34.8 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Dec 32.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Dec 33.4 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Dec 35.3 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Dec 35.6 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Dec 35.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Dec 35.5 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Dec 35.7 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Dec 35.2 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Dec after 34.3 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Dec after 34.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Dec after 34.5 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Dec after 33.4 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Dec after 35.3 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Dec after 36.3 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Dec after 36.3 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Dec after 36.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Dec after 35.5 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Dec after 35.0 °C 24 % 37 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 · 28 Nov 2017
After · 26 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 · 318Every 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 5 December 2017 and 19 December 2017: 15 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 5,590 hectares (55.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (5,638 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

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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.