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Etheridge fire, 14 December 2017 Etheridge

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2017, 15:04 UTC

The fire started on 14 December 2017 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,574 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1247th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 595 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
6,574ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
14 Dec 2017 – 19 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Dec
2017
Heat detections
310
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Dec19 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819

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
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 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
    6,640 ha reached on 12 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)
12 Dec 33.1 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Dec 34.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Dec 35.9 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Dec 36.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Dec 36.7 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Dec 36.1 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Dec 36.2 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Dec 36.2 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Dec after 34.7 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Dec after 35.0 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Dec after 35.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Dec after 33.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Dec after 35.9 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Dec after 37.0 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Dec after 37.2 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Dec after 36.5 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Dec after 35.8 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Dec after 35.7 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Dec after 37.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Dec after 37.3 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Jan after 34.9 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Dec 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 · 310Every 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 14 December 2017 and 19 December 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 6,574 hectares (65.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (6,640 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.