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34 Complex, April 2018 Woodward, Harper

Out · last detection 13 Apr 2018, 20:06 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2018 in Woodward, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 23,266 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 6th largest in Oklahoma since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 29 in United States in 2018, of 511.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.9 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
23,266ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
12 Apr 2018 – 12 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
12 Apr
2018
Heat detections
230
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
740MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr12 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

13

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
81km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.8 mm on 20 Apr.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,306 ha in 2016, 4,166 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,732 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Woodward where it started
    20,443 ha reached on 13 Apr
    6.3 %
  2. Harper
    2,857 ha reached on 13 Apr
    1.1 %

Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official 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)
12 Apr 35.4 °C 7 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Apr after 27.3 °C 11 % 81 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
14 Apr after 8.1 °C 30 % 98 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Apr after 14.7 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Apr after 22.4 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Apr after 33.7 °C 8 % 84 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
18 Apr after 19.4 °C 16 % 85 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
19 Apr after 17.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Apr after 17.9 °C 28 % 65 km/h 12.8 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2018
After · 19 Apr 2018

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 230Every 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 United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the 34 Complex fire last?
It burned between 12 April 2018 and 12 April 2018: 1 day, according to the start date recorded by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) and the heat detections seen by satellite.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 23,266 hectares (232.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Woodward (20,443 ha, 6.3 %); Harper (2,857 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 81 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the official burnt perimeter of United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC, public domain), NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of United States. 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: 911

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.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter is official and in the public domain. For past years it comes from MTBS (Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity), run by the U.S. Geological Survey and the USDA Forest Service, which map it on Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery. For the current and last year it comes from WFIGS at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC): incident perimeters mapped by fire crews, aircraft and imagery. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. County boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Public Domain). The area per county is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from official figures.