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Alder Fire, October 2018 Tulare

Out · last measured on 4 Oct 2018

The fire started on 4 October 2018 in Tulare, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,112 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 202th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 192 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
2,112ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
4 Oct 2018 – 4 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
4 Oct
2018
Heat detections
661
in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct4 Oct

The weather it burned in

20°high
46km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.6 mm on 28 Nov.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 288 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Tulare where it started
    2,112 ha reached on 16 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
4 Oct 13.4 °C 55 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 3
5 Oct after 14.9 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
6 Oct after 11.8 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm Low 8
7 Oct after 13.3 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
8 Oct after 14.6 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
9 Oct after 15.5 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Oct after 14.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
11 Oct after 13.6 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Oct after 17.8 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Oct after 15.9 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
14 Oct after 16.5 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
15 Oct after 15.9 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Oct after 16.1 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Oct after 15.9 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Oct after 16.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Oct after 18.5 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Oct after 17.7 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Oct after 16.1 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
22 Oct after 15.9 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Oct after 15.3 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Oct after 16.3 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Oct after 17.4 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Oct after 19.8 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Oct after 20.5 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Oct after 18.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Oct after 13.3 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Oct after 12.2 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
31 Oct after 13.5 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Nov after 16.0 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Nov after 16.7 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Nov after 16.9 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Nov after 17.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Nov after 16.5 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Nov after 14.8 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Nov after 14.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Nov after 13.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Nov after 13.6 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Nov after 10.1 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Nov after 12.0 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Nov after 12.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Nov after 11.9 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Nov after 12.6 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Nov after 13.0 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Nov after 12.4 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Nov after 11.6 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Nov after 12.9 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Nov after 11.4 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Nov after 12.5 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Nov after 11.1 °C 11 % 30 km/h 2.1 mm Low 7
22 Nov after 6.5 °C 54 % 38 km/h 6.9 mm Very low 0
23 Nov after 6.2 °C 54 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
24 Nov after 8.4 °C 61 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 3
25 Nov after 9.3 °C 55 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
26 Nov after 11.5 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
27 Nov after 11.2 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
28 Nov after 6.2 °C 52 % 34 km/h 12.6 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Sept 2018
After · 11 Oct 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 · 661Every 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 Alder fire last?
It burned between 4 October 2018 and 4 October 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 2,112 hectares (21.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Tulare (2,112 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
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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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 911.

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.