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Baca fire, February 2019 Baca

Out · last measured on 13 Feb 2019

The fire started on 13 February 2019 in Baca, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,573 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 74th largest in Colorado since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 156 in United States in 2019, of 367.

We have the official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC) for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by county is there.

Burnt area
1,573ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
13 Feb 2019 – 13 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
13 Feb
2019
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

20°high
60km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 18 Feb.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Baca where it started
    1,564 ha
    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)
13 Feb 19.7 °C 5 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Feb after 20.0 °C 20 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Feb after 8.3 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Feb after 14.2 °C 21 % 70 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
17 Feb after 6.4 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
18 Feb after -3.5 °C 60 % 43 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Feb 2019
After · 20 Feb 2019

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

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Baca fire last?
It burned between 13 February 2019 and 13 February 2019: 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 1,573 hectares (15.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Baca (1,564 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 19.7 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.