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Etheridge fire, 2 December 2025 Etheridge, Charters Towers

Out · last detection 13 Dec 2025, 15:34 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2025 in Etheridge, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,440 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 821th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 533 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
9,440ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
2 Dec 2025 – 13 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
2 Dec
2025
Heat detections
254
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec13 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

234567910111213

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high
50km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 15 Dec.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,989 ha in 2019, 2,938 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,425 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Etheridge where it started
    8,127 ha reached on 2 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Charters Towers
    1,346 ha reached on 4 Dec
    0.0 %

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)
2 Dec 34.1 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Dec 32.1 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 Dec 31.6 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
5 Dec 32.9 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
6 Dec 32.9 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
7 Dec 34.7 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Dec 33.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Dec 32.9 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Dec 33.6 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Dec 33.4 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Dec 33.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Dec 34.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Dec after 34.2 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
15 Dec after 34.8 °C 29 % 27 km/h 3.8 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Nov 2025
After · 20 Dec 2025

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 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1015 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
3012345678910111213141516
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 · 254Every 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 2 December 2025 and 13 December 2025: 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 9,440 hectares (94.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Etheridge (8,127 ha, 0.2 %); Charters Towers (1,346 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
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
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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.