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Buffalo Fire, February 2016 Harper

Out · last detection 19 Feb 2016, 08:47 UTC

The fire started on 18 February 2016 in Harper, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 6,536 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 19th largest in Oklahoma since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 51 in United States in 2016, of 475.

The power measured by the satellite is low (0.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,536ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
18 Feb 2016 – 18 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
18 Feb
2016
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 1 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Feb18 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

19

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
71km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 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. Harper where it started
    6,562 ha reached on 19 Feb
    2.4 %

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)
18 Feb 30.7 °C 9 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Feb after 21.4 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Feb after 23.7 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Feb after 15.9 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Feb after 13.5 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
23 Feb after 10.4 °C 24 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Feb after 16.0 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Feb after 9.2 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Feb after 18.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
27 Feb after 25.7 °C 11 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Feb after 20.8 °C 20 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Feb after 24.4 °C 20 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Feb 2016
After · 25 Feb 2016

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 Buffalo fire last?
It burned between 18 February 2016 and 18 February 2016: 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 6,536 hectares (65.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Harper (6,562 ha, 2.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

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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.