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Etheridge fire, 4 November 2024 Etheridge

Out · last detection 15 Nov 2024, 03:46 UTC

The fire started on 4 November 2024 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,421 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 944th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 320 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area
8,421ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
4 Nov 2024 – 15 Nov 2024
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
4 Nov
2024
Heat detections
372
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Nov 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Nov15 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

789101112131415

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
50km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 20 Nov.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 60 ha in 2019, 1,923 ha in 2020, 529 ha in 2021, 538 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    8,505 ha reached on 7 Nov
    0.2 %

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)
4 Nov 37.8 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
5 Nov 39.1 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Nov 38.9 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Nov 39.3 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Nov 39.6 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Nov 39.8 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Nov 38.4 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Nov 37.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Nov 38.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Nov 38.4 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.9 mm Very high 47
14 Nov 37.1 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
15 Nov 37.7 °C 29 % 42 km/h 2.1 mm High 30
16 Nov after 35.4 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
17 Nov after 37.0 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Nov after 35.1 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Nov after 34.3 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Nov after 32.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 1.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Oct 2024
After · 22 Nov 2024

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 guideline8 days
PM10144 µg/m³
Optical depth2.00
23456789101112131415161718
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 · 372Every 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 4 November 2024 and 15 November 2024: 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 8,421 hectares (84.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Etheridge (8,505 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 50 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.