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Etheridge fire, 3 November 2021 Etheridge

Out · last detection 8 Nov 2021, 03:30 UTC

The fire started on 3 November 2021 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,120 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 297th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 60 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
21,120ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
3 Nov 2021 – 8 Nov 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Nov
2021
Heat detections
633
in a single hotspot: 173 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Nov 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Nov8 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

345678

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
48km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.6 mm on 25 Nov.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,714 ha in 2017, 83 ha in 2018, 8,361 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,160 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    21,156 ha reached on 3 Nov
    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)
3 Nov 38.6 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 48
4 Nov 38.5 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Nov 39.3 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
6 Nov 38.8 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Nov 38.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Nov 38.1 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 46
9 Nov after 34.7 °C 41 % 33 km/h 1.2 mm High 24
10 Nov after 38.3 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Nov after 37.8 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Nov after 30.7 °C 61 % 41 km/h 11.7 mm Low 6
13 Nov after 33.2 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Nov after 37.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Nov after 39.1 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Nov after 38.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Nov after 39.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Nov after 39.6 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Nov after 40.2 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Nov after 39.8 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Nov after 40.3 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Nov after 38.8 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Nov after 41.0 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Nov after 38.6 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 40
25 Nov after 33.6 °C 42 % 31 km/h 8.6 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Oct 2021
After · 15 Nov 2021

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 3 November 2021 and 8 November 2021: 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 21,120 hectares (211.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (21,156 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.