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Boxelder Fire, October 2020 Carter

Out · last measured on 12 Oct 2020

The fire started on 12 October 2020 in Carter, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,393 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 147th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 220 in United States in 2020, of 441.

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
1,393ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
12 Oct 2020 – 12 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Oct
2020
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

17°high
71km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 13 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Carter where it started
    1,400 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)
12 Oct 17.2 °C 30 % 71 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 39
13 Oct after 14.7 °C 31 % 50 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2020
After · 19 Oct 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.

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Boxelder fire last?
It burned between 12 October 2020 and 12 October 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 1,393 hectares (13.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Carter (1,400 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 17.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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.