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Etheridge fire, 22 October 2018 Etheridge

Out · last detection 29 Oct 2018, 04:06 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2018 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,442 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 322th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 153 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
19,442ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
22 Oct 2018 – 30 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Oct
2018
Heat detections
1,131
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct30 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
53km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 102 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    19,647 ha reached on 22 Oct
    0.5 %

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)
22 Oct 34.6 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Oct 32.7 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Oct 34.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Oct 34.2 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Oct 35.9 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Oct 38.1 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Oct 35.2 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Oct 37.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Oct 35.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Oct after 35.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 45
1 Nov after 34.5 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Nov after 33.2 °C 22 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Nov after 32.9 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Nov after 34.3 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Nov after 35.7 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Nov after 37.1 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Nov after 35.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Nov after 34.8 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Nov after 31.6 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 43
10 Nov after 30.8 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 42
11 Nov after 29.4 °C 41 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
12 Nov after 32.4 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Nov after 32.0 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Nov after 34.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Nov after 33.9 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Nov after 32.4 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Oct 2018
After · 6 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 · 1,131Every 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 22 October 2018 and 30 October 2018: 9 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 19,442 hectares (194.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (19,647 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.