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Boulder Fire, June 2019 San Luis Obispo

Out · last measured on 5 Jun 2019

The fire started on 5 June 2019 in San Luis Obispo, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 485 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 404th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 332 in United States in 2019, of 367.

Burnt area
485ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
5 Jun 2019 – 5 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
5 Jun
2019
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jun5 Jun

The weather it burned in

33°high
42km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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. San Luis Obispo where it started
    478 ha reached on 8 Jun
    0.1 %

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)
5 Jun 32.9 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.9 mm High 26
6 Jun after 29.1 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Jun after 26.5 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Jun after 28.8 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Jun after 33.6 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Jun after 35.0 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jun after 36.1 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Jun after 31.7 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jun after 29.5 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Jun after 28.7 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jun after 30.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jun after 28.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jun after 29.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Jun after 31.8 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 May 2019
After · 12 Jun 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.

Detections table · 1Every 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 Boulder fire last?
It burned between 5 June 2019 and 5 June 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 485 hectares (4.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered San Luis Obispo (478 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.