Etheridge fire, October 2023 Etheridge, Flinders (Qld)
The fire started on 20 October 2023 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 69,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 63th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 60 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 69,459ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 20 Oct 2023 – 4 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 3,796
- in a single hotspot: 116 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 24.5GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 585 ha in 2017, 24,094 ha in 2018, 16,264 ha in 2019, 3,185 ha in 2020, 5,036 ha in 2021, 3,495 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 44,348 ha that had burned before.
- 13,139 ha Flinders (Qld) fire, December 2018 14,321 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,006 ha Etheridge fire, September 2019 14,185 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,095 ha Flinders (Qld) fire, October 2021 6,130 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 428 ha Etheridge fire, December 2017 12,284 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 236 ha Etheridge fire, October 2018 19,442 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Etheridge where it started39,116 ha reached on 20 Oct1.0 %
-
30,692 ha reached on 27 Oct0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct | 31.7 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 21 Oct | 31.2 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 22 Oct | 31.5 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Oct | 34.0 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 24 Oct | 34.9 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 25 Oct | 35.9 °C | 8 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 26 Oct | 35.1 °C | 12 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 27 Oct | 33.1 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 28 Oct | 32.9 °C | 18 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 29 Oct | 32.1 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 30 Oct | 32.7 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 31 Oct | 33.6 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 1 Nov | 36.4 °C | 9 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 2 Nov | 37.3 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 3 Nov | 35.1 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 4 Nov | 33.9 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Nov after | 32.4 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Nov after | 32.3 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 7 Nov after | 30.7 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Nov after | 30.2 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Nov after | 31.3 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Nov after | 32.1 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Nov after | 31.2 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 12 Nov after | 31.4 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Nov after | 32.2 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Nov after | 33.5 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 15 Nov after | 35.4 °C | 11 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Nov after | 35.0 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 17 Nov after | 36.0 °C | 18 % | 35 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.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 24 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 3,796Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Etheridge fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2023 and 4 November 2023: 16 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 69,459 hectares (694.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Etheridge (39,116 ha, 1.0 %); Flinders (Qld) (30,692 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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
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.