Paul, so it was early evening of course? - you mentioned it was before the moon was up - so around 7pm? A lot of people must of seen it then I guess maybe
. Was its path as fat as a fullish moon at some points? If it came from the west at that time of night and was impressive and has the colour orange involved somewhere , then there is a good chance it was a decayed orbit space junk re-entry maybe - there is some interest in these types of fireballs from amateurs and the people that track the space junk for the aerospace industry, and there is interest in fireballs generally (not to mention meteorite collecters lol ).
Cheers
Fringey