How long did the Etheridge fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 November 2024 and 19 November 2024: 17 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 43,364 hectares (433.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Etheridge (43,739 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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.

AU · Australia · 2024-11-03 → 2024-11-19

Etheridge fire, 3 November 2024 Etheridge

Out · last detection 19 Nov 2024, 04:11 UTC

The fire started on 3 November 2024 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 43,364 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 124th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 36 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 43,364ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 3 Nov 2024 – 19 Nov 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 3 Nov; 2024
Heat detections: 2,300; in a single hotspot: 167 MW
Danger at start: 59; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 21.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Nov 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Nov19 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213141516171819

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

57km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 28 Nov.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,415 ha in 2016, 6,799 ha in 2017, 761 ha in 2018, 1,764 ha in 2019, 6 ha in 2020, 330 ha in 2021, 122 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,749 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Etheridge where it started

43,739 ha reached on 7 Nov

1.1 %

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	35.5 °C	17 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
4 Nov	37.7 °C	11 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
5 Nov	37.9 °C	13 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
6 Nov	38.1 °C	14 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
7 Nov	38.0 °C	13 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
8 Nov	39.6 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
9 Nov	40.5 °C	12 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
10 Nov	38.2 °C	18 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
11 Nov	38.5 °C	18 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
12 Nov	39.0 °C	20 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
13 Nov	38.1 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
14 Nov	37.1 °C	28 %	38 km/h	9.9 mm	Moderate 14
15 Nov	36.3 °C	29 %	38 km/h	6.2 mm	Moderate 14
16 Nov	34.6 °C	31 %	42 km/h	1.9 mm	Moderate 20
17 Nov	36.7 °C	22 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
18 Nov	34.3 °C	27 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Nov	35.4 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
20 Nov after	30.0 °C	37 %	33 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 20
21 Nov after	32.9 °C	34 %	45 km/h	0.6 mm	High 28
22 Nov after	32.0 °C	40 %	48 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
23 Nov after	33.0 °C	31 %	52 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 38
24 Nov after	33.7 °C	30 %	57 km/h	0.7 mm	Very high 40
25 Nov after	33.6 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.2 mm	High 36
26 Nov after	34.9 °C	23 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
27 Nov after	35.6 °C	26 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
28 Nov after	34.2 °C	33 %	41 km/h	1.3 mm	High 29

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Oct 2024

After · 26 Nov 2024

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 13 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 123 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 65: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak123 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM10144 µg/m³

Optical depth2.00

WHO 15

12345678910111213141516171819202122

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 2,300Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Etheridge fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 November 2024 and 19 November 2024: 17 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 43,364 hectares (433.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Etheridge (43,739 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned