Burned area
satellite only901ha
Perimeter published by MTBS (USGS/USFS).
- Source
- MTBS (USGS/USFS)
- Date
- 3 Nov 2016 – 23 Nov 2016
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
US · United States · –
Anderson fire, November 2016 Anderson
Out · last detection 23 Nov 2016, 18:13 UTC
The fire started on 3 November 2016 in Anderson, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 901 hectares, spread across a single county.
It is the 7th largest in Tennessee since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 291 in United States in 2016, of 475.
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only21days
3 Nov 2016 to 23 Nov 2016: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- MTBS (USGS/USFS) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 23 Nov 2016, 18:13 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only3 Nov 2016
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- MTBS (USGS/USFS) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Nov 2016
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only40
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 37 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 3 Nov 2016 – 23 Nov 2016
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only109MW
Total radiative power on 5 November 2016; hotspots that day: 14.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 Nov 2016
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model21.1FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 6.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 3 Nov 2016, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model22.8°C · 38% RH
High of 22.8 °C and minimum humidity of 38% on 3 November 2016; gusts of 60 km/h on 19 November 2016.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 3 Nov 2016 – 23 Nov 2016
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 901 ha
- Dates
- 3 Nov 2016 – 23 Nov 2016
- Name
- Anderson
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/anderson-tennessee-2016-11?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire anderson-tennessee-2016-11.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-11-03 | 0 | 0 | 22.8 | 12.3 | 38 | 13.7 | 36.7 | 1.8 | 21.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-04 | 2 | 7 | 17.8 | 8.4 | 29 | 15.6 | 36.7 | 0.4 | 8.7 | bajo | 1 |
| 2016-11-05 | 14 | 109 | 17.3 | 2.8 | 28 | 9.2 | 20.5 | 0 | 9.8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2016-11-06 | 6 | 28 | 18.1 | 2.9 | 22 | 6.1 | 19.4 | 0 | 15.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-07 | 11 | 60 | 19.3 | 3.6 | 21 | 8.1 | 25.6 | 0 | 22 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-11-08 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 5.3 | 29 | 9.4 | 23.8 | 0 | 22.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-11-09 | 0 | 0 | 11.1 | 4.7 | 46 | 16.4 | 42.5 | 0.5 | 22.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-11-10 | 1 | 2 | 15.2 | -0.1 | 21 | 8.3 | 20.5 | 0 | 15.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-11 | 0 | 0 | 15.1 | 0.4 | 35 | 14.7 | 33.8 | 0 | 18.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-12 | 1 | 9 | 12.2 | 1.6 | 29 | 14.4 | 33.8 | 0 | 18.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-13 | 0 | 0 | 13.8 | -2.2 | 26 | 6.6 | 15.5 | 0 | 15.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-14 | 0 | 0 | 14.4 | -0.6 | 32 | 6.7 | 20.9 | 0 | 15.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-15 | 0 | 0 | 15 | -0.5 | 35 | 8.1 | 22 | 0 | 15.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-16 | 0 | 0 | 17.1 | 2.2 | 27 | 8.9 | 25.6 | 0 | 19.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-17 | 0 | 0 | 21.5 | 3.7 | 26 | 11 | 22.3 | 0 | 20.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-18 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 5.5 | 20 | 13.8 | 36 | 0 | 26.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-11-19 | 0 | 0 | 11.8 | -0.2 | 33 | 22.9 | 59.8 | 2.8 | 8.4 | bajo | 1 |
| 2016-11-20 | 0 | 0 | 4.9 | -4.6 | 23 | 16.3 | 39.6 | 0 | 8.9 | bajo | 1 |
| 2016-11-21 | 0 | 0 | 7.1 | -5.6 | 18 | 8.8 | 26.3 | 0 | 12.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-22 | 3 | 43 | 10.9 | -4.4 | 19 | 7.3 | 20.9 | 0 | 13.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-11-23 | 2 | 75 | 16.1 | 2.4 | 16 | 18.6 | 47.9 | 0.5 | 29.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-11-24 | 0 | 0 | 14.8 | 7.7 | 60 | 16.6 | 38.2 | 1.1 | 5.5 | bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: MTBS (USGS/USFS), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 901ha
- official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
- Duration
- ≈ 21days
- 3 Nov 2016 – 23 Nov 2016
- Counties hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 3 Nov
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 40
- in a single hotspot: 37 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 42MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
3 Nov23 Nov
23 Nov 2016
How it evolved, day by day
5 Nov
10 Nov
22 Nov
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
23°high
60km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 24 Nov.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each county
-
Anderson where it started901 ha reached on 4 Nov1.0 %
Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Nov | 22.8 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 4 Nov | 17.8 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 9 |
| 5 Nov | 17.3 °C | 28 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 6 Nov | 18.1 °C | 22 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 7 Nov | 19.3 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 8 Nov | 17.0 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Nov | 11.1 °C | 46 % | 42 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Nov | 15.2 °C | 21 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 11 Nov | 15.1 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 12 Nov | 12.2 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 13 Nov | 13.8 °C | 26 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 14 Nov | 14.4 °C | 32 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 15 Nov | 15.0 °C | 35 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 16 Nov | 17.1 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 17 Nov | 21.5 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Nov | 22.0 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Nov | 11.8 °C | 33 % | 60 km/h | 2.8 mm | Low 8 |
| 20 Nov | 4.9 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 21 Nov | 7.1 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 22 Nov | 10.9 °C | 19 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 23 Nov | 16.1 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Nov after | 14.8 °C | 60 % | 38 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 6 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 21.1, a minimum humidity of 38% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 11.
FWI at the start
21.1
Minimum humidity
38 %
Days without rain
6
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Anderson fire, November 2016
901 ha
21 days
FWI 21.1
Min. humidity 38 %
Jefferson Rd Fire, September 2016
531 ha
2 days
FWI 21.9
Min. humidity 37 %
248 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 26 Sept.
Fox Mountain Fire, October 2016
410 ha
12 days
FWI 26.8
Min. humidity 36 %
195 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.1 mm on 21 Oct.
Indigo Lane Fire, March 2022
872 ha
1 day
FWI 18.2
Min. humidity 29 %
77 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 12.4 mm on 31 Mar.
North Ga Fires 2023 Complex, November 2023
636 ha
1 day
FWI 21.4
Min. humidity 28 %
160 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.3 mm on 10 Nov.
Rocklick Fire, November 2023
1,308 ha
7 days
FWI 11.7
Min. humidity 39 %
237 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 8.6 mm on 17 Nov.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 11. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
1.1 mmfirst rain
24 Novthe day after it ended
60km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 23 Nov, and on 24 Nov 1.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 27 Oct 2016
After · 30 Nov 2016
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 40Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 434 haCharles Branch Lane AndersonNovember 2016 · 5 days · 4 km away
- 2,048 haScott County- Huntsville- 6561 Smokey Creek Road- ScottNovember 2023 · 6 days · 9 km away
- 1,249 haSr116-Devonia AndersonNovember 2016 · 23 days · 10 km away
- 438 haBig Brushy Mountain MorganNovember 2017 · 3 days · 14 km away
- 1,289 haWhite Oak Circle MorganNovember 2016 · 11 days · 24 km away
- 4,364 haStinking Creek CampbellNovember 2016 · 14 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Anderson fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (3 November 2016). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 23 November 2016 (21 days from 3 November 2016), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 901 hectares (9.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
- Which counties burned?
- The fire only entered Anderson (901 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 22.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
- NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center ↗
- InciWeb · Incident Information System ↗
- MTBS · Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity ↗
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 40 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.