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US · 2016 yearbook

Wildfires in United States in 2016

475 fires larger than 400 hectares in United States in 2016, with 1,711,638 hectares burned according to their perimeters. Here is the whole year: what the official record says, when and where it burned and what the weather was like.

Only fires of 400 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the entry totals, but they are in the official yearly series.

These figures leave out one page with faulty data, under review. They appear in the lists, marked.

The year in a few sentences

  1. According to Copernicus GWIS, 5,619,113 hectares burned in United States in 2016, in line with the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (5,656,523 ha).

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 1 April to 7 April: 439,131 hectares burned in seven days, 8% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Anderson Creek Fire fire, which started on 17 March 2016 and burned 151,444 hectares: 9% of the area of the year's 475 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

  4. The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 23 March 2016: a Fire Weather Index of 106 (very extreme on the EFFIS scale) at the Crutch fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

    WorldFires · ERA5 · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
5.6 M ha
Copernicus GWIS · ×1.0 the average
Fires with a page
475
1,711,638 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
151k ha
Anderson Creek Fire · 17 Mar
Highest FWI
106 Very extreme
23 Mar · Crutch

Map of the year

MTBS / NIFC
One circle per fire, sized by its area. Tap one to open its page. Showing the 400 largest of 475.

Month by month

Hectares within the perimeters by the month the fire started. Tap a month to see it on the map.

Week by week, against other years

Copernicus GWIS

Cumulative burned area in 2016 over the lowest and highest of each week in the record since 2012, and its average. The bars below show what burned each week. Tap the chart to see a week. The average and the band are the Copernicus GWIS climatology for 2012–2025, which includes 2016 itself.

0 2.4 M 4.9 M 7.3 M Worst week · 439k ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2016 average 2012–2025 lowest and highest Hectares each week

Every year since 2012

Copernicus GWIS

Hectares burned per year in the official record. Tap a year to open its yearbook.

2016: 5,619,113 ha Average of the other years: 5,656,523 ha

Cite this

Markdown version

Copy the sentences with their source and link. WorldFires data are CC BY 4.0: credit WorldFires and the original source.

- According to Copernicus GWIS, 5,619,113 hectares burned in United States in 2016, in line with the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (5,656,523 ha).
- The worst week was 1 April to 7 April: 439,131 hectares burned in seven days, 8% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Anderson Creek Fire fire, which started on 17 March 2016 and burned 151,444 hectares: 9% of the area of the year's 475 fires with a page.
- The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 23 March 2016: a Fire Weather Index of 106 (very extreme on the EFFIS scale) at the Crutch fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in United States in 2016”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/united-states/2016 (accessed 11 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires, WorldFires · ERA5.

Fires of 2016, largest first · 476

Sources and limits

Fire-page areas are satellite-measured perimeters and may differ from official statistics. The yearly and weekly record is the Copernicus GWIS estimate. The FWI is our own calculation from ERA5 at each fire's location: it is not an official danger warning.

Official information for United States is published by: NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center · InciWeb · Incident Information System · MTBS · Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity

Perimeters: Copernicus EFFIS and GWIS (and MTBS, NIFC or NBAC in North America). Hotspots: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS). Weather: Copernicus ERA5 via Open-Meteo. How it is calculated