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Buffalo Fire, June 2018 Yakima, Kittitas

Out · last detection 3 Jun 2018, 09:28 UTC

The fire started on 2 June 2018 in Yakima, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 755 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 232th largest in Washington since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 387 in United States in 2018, of 511.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.9 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
755ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
2 Jun 2018 – 2 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
2 Jun
2018
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
6MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jun2 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

3

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
53km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 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. Yakima where it started
    664 ha reached on 3 Jun
    0.1 %
  2. Kittitas
    90 ha
    0.0 %

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)
2 Jun 25.7 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Jun after 27.2 °C 20 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Jun after 20.9 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jun after 24.1 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Jun after 25.2 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jun after 26.9 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jun after 24.9 °C 23 % 53 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 47
9 Jun after 17.1 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 42
10 Jun after 16.4 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.9 mm High 25
11 Jun after 21.6 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Jun after 23.3 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jun after 22.9 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 May 2018
After · 9 Jun 2018

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 · 4Every 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 2 June 2018 and 2 June 2018: 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 755 hectares (7.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Yakima (664 ha, 0.1 %); Kittitas (90 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.