Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Etheridge fire, 15 December 2019 Etheridge

Out · last detection 27 Dec 2019, 16:06 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2019 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 123,760 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 21th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 19 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
123,760ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
15 Dec 2019 – 26 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Dec
2019
Heat detections
5,002
in a single hotspot: 149 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
36.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec26 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021222324252627

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
53km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 4 Jan.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21,862 ha in 2016, 9,139 ha in 2017, 380 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    124,217 ha reached on 15 Dec
    3.2 %

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)
15 Dec 38.7 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 52
16 Dec 37.8 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Dec 38.7 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Dec 38.5 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Dec 37.7 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
20 Dec 38.2 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
21 Dec 37.6 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
22 Dec 37.9 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
23 Dec 39.0 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 Dec 39.9 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Dec 38.7 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Dec 37.7 °C 29 % 52 km/h 1.3 mm Very high 42
27 Dec after 33.9 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
28 Dec after 36.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
29 Dec after 35.6 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 46
30 Dec after 35.1 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 44
31 Dec after 35.8 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Jan after 37.6 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 47
2 Jan after 38.7 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Jan after 35.6 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Jan after 36.3 °C 30 % 50 km/h 1.8 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Dec 2019
After · 2 Jan 2020

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 · 5,002Every 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 15 December 2019 and 26 December 2019: 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 123,760 hectares (1,237.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (124,217 ha, 3.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.