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Basin Fire, May 2020 Mohave

Out · last detection 11 May 2020, 21:16 UTC

The fire started on 10 May 2020 in Mohave, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 15,633 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 15th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 48 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
15,633ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
10 May 2020 – 10 May 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
10 May
2020
Heat detections
69
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
194MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 May 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 May10 May

How it evolved, day by day

1011

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
75km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mohave where it started
    15,834 ha reached on 10 May
    0.4 %

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)
10 May 31.3 °C 12 % 60 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 62
11 May after 28.8 °C 12 % 75 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
12 May after 26.2 °C 14 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
13 May after 24.6 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 May after 26.1 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 May after 28.1 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 May after 30.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 May after 30.0 °C 14 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 May after 28.8 °C 15 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
19 May after 22.2 °C 12 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 May after 21.0 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 May after 26.2 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 May after 27.4 °C 11 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 May 2020
After · 17 May 2020

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 · 69Every 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 Basin fire last?
It burned between 10 May 2020 and 10 May 2020: 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 15,633 hectares (156.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Mohave (15,834 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 75 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, class Very 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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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.