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Etheridge fire, 16 October 2018 Etheridge

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2018, 04:44 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2018 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,270 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 837th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 432 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
9,270ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
16 Oct 2018 – 27 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
16 Oct
2018
Heat detections
316
in a single hotspot: 265 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct27 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021222324252627

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
48km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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
    9,291 ha reached on 17 Oct
    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)
16 Oct 33.2 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Oct 33.2 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
18 Oct 33.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Oct 34.9 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Oct 35.3 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Oct 35.2 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Oct 36.7 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Oct 34.6 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Oct 36.3 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Oct 37.0 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
26 Oct 37.6 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Oct 40.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
28 Oct after 37.8 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Oct after 38.2 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Oct after 37.9 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 53
31 Oct after 37.5 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Nov after 36.9 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
2 Nov after 35.6 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
3 Nov after 35.8 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Nov after 36.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Nov after 36.8 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Nov after 37.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Nov after 36.1 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Nov after 36.8 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Oct 2018
After · 3 Nov 2018

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 · 316Every 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 16 October 2018 and 27 October 2018: 12 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 9,270 hectares (92.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (9,291 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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
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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.