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Bear Trap Fire, May 2022 Socorro

Out · last detection 2 May 2022, 20:56 UTC

The fire started on 1 May 2022 in Socorro, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 15,468 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 12th largest in New Mexico since 2016 (of 204 with a page). Number 38 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Burnt area
15,468ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
1 May 2022 – 1 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
1 May
2022
Heat detections
2,432
in a single hotspot: 376 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
403MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 May 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 May1 May

How it evolved, day by day

12

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
80km/h · peak gust
2%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 8 Jun.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 157 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Socorro where it started
    15,453 ha reached on 1 May
    0.9 %

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)
1 May 22.1 °C 3 % 69 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
2 May after 22.0 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 May after 21.4 °C 8 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 May after 18.7 °C 8 % 69 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 63
5 May after 21.1 °C 5 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 May after 24.6 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 May after 24.9 °C 6 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 May after 23.0 °C 10 % 77 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
9 May after 22.4 °C 8 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
10 May after 23.9 °C 5 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 May after 23.8 °C 10 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
12 May after 22.3 °C 2 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 May after 23.5 °C 2 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 May after 25.7 °C 3 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 May after 26.2 °C 4 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 May after 26.7 °C 3 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
17 May after 25.3 °C 4 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 May after 25.7 °C 5 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 May after 25.5 °C 5 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
20 May after 24.1 °C 8 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
21 May after 23.6 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 May after 18.3 °C 18 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 May after 21.1 °C 9 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 May after 17.9 °C 6 % 80 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
25 May after 23.1 °C 8 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 May after 26.2 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 May after 27.2 °C 6 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
28 May after 26.6 °C 4 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
29 May after 22.5 °C 9 % 77 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
30 May after 22.9 °C 9 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
31 May after 25.8 °C 6 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
1 Jun after 26.4 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Jun after 23.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 1.4 mm High 30
3 Jun after 25.2 °C 6 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Jun after 26.0 °C 6 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Jun after 27.3 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Jun after 28.9 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Jun after 29.7 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jun after 29.7 °C 12 % 62 km/h 1.2 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Apr 2022
After · 8 May 2022

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 · 2,432Every 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 Bear Trap fire last?
It burned between 1 May 2022 and 1 May 2022: 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 15,468 hectares (154.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Socorro (15,453 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 2 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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.