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Etheridge fire, 7 September 2019 Etheridge, Flinders (Qld)

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2019, 15:17 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2019 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,185 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 501th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 253 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
14,185ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
7 Sept 2019 – 15 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
7 Sept
2019
Heat detections
633
in a single hotspot: 309 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
55km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 46 ha in 2017, 1,052 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    13,803 ha reached on 7 Sept
    0.4 %
  2. Flinders (Qld)
    532 ha reached on 7 Sept
    0.0 %

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)
7 Sept 29.5 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Sept 25.9 °C 7 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Sept 25.6 °C 6 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
10 Sept 25.5 °C 8 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Sept 23.9 °C 11 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Sept 23.4 °C 24 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 25.4 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept 27.1 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 26.9 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept after 27.2 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Sept after 29.0 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 30.9 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 29.9 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Sept after 28.1 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Sept after 28.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Sept after 27.1 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Sept after 28.1 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Sept after 28.1 °C 24 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Sept after 27.9 °C 30 % 53 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 · 31 Aug 2019
After · 22 Sept 2019

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 · 633Every 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 7 September 2019 and 15 September 2019: 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 14,185 hectares (141.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Etheridge (13,803 ha, 0.4 %); Flinders (Qld) (532 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.