Etheridge fire, 6 November 2024 Etheridge
The fire started on 6 November 2024 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 61,931 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 74th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 20 in Australia in 2024, of 638.
- Burnt area
- 61,931ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 6 Nov 2024 – 13 Nov 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 6 Nov
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 2,767
- in a single hotspot: 331 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 34.7GW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.9 mm on 21 Nov.
This area had burned before
49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,972 ha in 2016, 4,601 ha in 2017, 19,565 ha in 2019, 2,164 ha in 2020, 3,415 ha in 2021, 1,710 ha in 2022, 88 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 30,259 ha that had burned before.
- 9,838 ha Etheridge fire, December 2019 11,319 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,121 ha Etheridge fire, December 2019 123,760 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,347 ha Etheridge fire, November 2016 8,444 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 210 ha Etheridge fire, February 2019 5,057 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Etheridge where it started62,252 ha reached on 7 Nov1.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Nov | 35.2 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 7 Nov | 35.3 °C | 15 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 8 Nov | 36.6 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 9 Nov | 37.0 °C | 17 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 10 Nov | 35.4 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Nov | 35.4 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Nov | 36.1 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 Nov | 37.2 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 14 Nov after | 32.9 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 7.2 mm | Low 9 |
| 15 Nov after | 35.8 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 12.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 16 Nov after | 32.0 °C | 38 % | 45 km/h | 3.7 mm | Low 7 |
| 17 Nov after | 33.4 °C | 27 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 18 Nov after | 32.6 °C | 30 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Nov after | 32.3 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 20 Nov after | 31.6 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 21 Nov after | 31.7 °C | 38 % | 45 km/h | 5.9 mm | Low 7 |
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 9 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 112 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 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 · 2,767Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,319 haEtheridge17 December 2019 · 18 days · 6 km away
- 8,444 haEtheridge22 November 2016 · 5 days · 12 km away
- 5,057 haEtheridgeFebruary 2019 · 3 days · 19 km away
- 6,240 haEtheridgeNovember 2022 · 4 days · 21 km away
- 6,904 haEtheridge4 December 2016 · 6 days · 22 km away
- 6,236 haEtheridge26 November 2017 · 2 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Etheridge fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 November 2024 and 13 November 2024: 8 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 61,931 hectares (619.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Etheridge (62,252 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.