Etheridge fire, 29 October 2025 Etheridge, Croydon
The fire started on 29 October 2025 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 51,880 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 94th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 65 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
- Burnt area
- 51,880ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 29 Oct 2025 – 19 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 29 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,099
- in a single hotspot: 130 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.7GW
- 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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 26 Nov.
This area had burned before
43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 598 ha in 2016, 306 ha in 2017, 3,195 ha in 2018, 3,260 ha in 2019, 3,073 ha in 2021, 6,104 ha in 2022, 9,351 ha in 2023, 2,310 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,123 ha that had burned before.
- 4,895 ha Etheridge fire, October 2022 15,418 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,195 ha Croydon fire, October 2018 23,977 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,471 ha Etheridge fire, November 2023 6,271 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,265 ha Croydon fire, November 2023 29,994 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 306 ha Etheridge fire, April 2017 6,440 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 50 ha Croydon fire, November 2016 26,909 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Etheridge where it started50,662 ha reached on 29 Oct1.3 %
-
1,423 ha reached on 7 Nov0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Oct | 38.9 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 26 Oct | 38.6 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Oct | 37.6 °C | 27 % | 56 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Oct | 36.7 °C | 30 % | 43 km/h | 1.7 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Oct | 37.0 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Oct | 39.1 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 Oct | 38.7 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 1 Nov | 38.6 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 2 Nov | 38.8 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 3 Nov | 33.5 °C | 41 % | 55 km/h | 3.5 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 4 Nov | 36.0 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Nov | 36.5 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Nov | 36.7 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 38 |
| 7 Nov | 38.1 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Nov | 36.5 °C | 27 % | 54 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Nov | 35.7 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 10 Nov | 36.9 °C | 20 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Nov | 38.6 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 12 Nov | 37.3 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 13 Nov | 33.2 °C | 39 % | 43 km/h | 2.7 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Nov | 32.8 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 25 |
| 15 Nov | 34.7 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Nov | 31.3 °C | 54 % | 42 km/h | 6.8 mm | Low 7 |
| 17 Nov | 33.1 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 22 |
| 18 Nov | 36.1 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Nov | 36.9 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Nov after | 37.8 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Nov after | 39.1 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Nov after | 40.5 °C | 15 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 Nov after | 39.1 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 24 Nov after | 39.2 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Nov after | 37.7 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 4.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 26 Nov after | 34.5 °C | 44 % | 24 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 9 |
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 12 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 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 · 1,099Every 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 29 October 2025 and 19 November 2025: 22 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 51,880 hectares (518.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Etheridge (50,662 ha, 1.3 %); Croydon (1,423 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.