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Bulkley-Nechako E fire, 7 July 2023 Bulkley-Nechako E

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2023, 10:30 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2023 in Bulkley-Nechako E, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 78 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 19,816 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 61th largest in British Columbia since 2016 (of 448 with a page). Number 95 in Canada in 2023, of 489.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bulkley-Nechako E · 2018Bulkley-Nechako E · 2021Bulkley-Nechako E · 2024Bulkley-Nechako D · 2023

Burnt area
19,816ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
78days
7 Jul 2023 – 22 Sept 2023
Census subdivisions hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Jul
2023
Heat detections
5,300
in a single hotspot: 613 MW
Danger at start
5
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
1.8GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul22 Sept
23 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

8 Jul 2023 · 546 MW · 16 9 Jul 2023 · 235 MW · 45 10 Jul 2023 · 189 MW · 59 11 Jul 2023 · 6,328 MW · 228 12 Jul 2023 · 4,499 MW · 299 13 Jul 2023 · 3,211 MW · 268 14 Jul 2023 · 1,186 MW · 136 15 Jul 2023 · 2,613 MW · 179 16 Jul 2023 · 248 MW · 83 18 Jul 2023 · 1 MW · 1 19 Jul 2023 · 59 MW · 11 20 Jul 2023 · 8 MW · 7 21 Jul 2023 · 13 MW · 5 5 Aug 2023 · 16 MW · 2 6 Aug 2023 · 3 MW · 2 7 Aug 2023 · 6 MW · 2 13 Aug 2023 · 28 MW · 2 14 Aug 2023 · 96 MW · 11 15 Aug 2023 · 569 MW · 32 16 Aug 2023 · 8,777 MW · 231 17 Aug 2023 · 7,419 MW · 234 18 Aug 2023 · 3,378 MW · 189 19 Aug 2023 · 1,377 MW · 114 20 Aug 2023 · 237 MW · 78 21 Aug 2023 · 1,409 MW · 50 22 Aug 2023 · 907 MW · 126 23 Aug 2023 · 3 MW · 1 24 Aug 2023 · 421 MW · 23 25 Aug 2023 · 993 MW · 57 26 Aug 2023 · 842 MW · 102 27 Aug 2023 · 4,171 MW · 222 28 Aug 2023 · 2,607 MW · 255 29 Aug 2023 · 52 MW · 30 30 Aug 2023 · 167 MW · 12 31 Aug 2023 · 634 MW · 41 1 Sept 2023 · 2,139 MW · 172 2 Sept 2023 · 15,976 MW · 526 3 Sept 2023 · 9,877 MW · 676 4 Sept 2023 · 627 MW · 127 5 Sept 2023 · 2 MW · 1 8 Sept 2023 · 197 MW · 11 9 Sept 2023 · 1,716 MW · 63 10 Sept 2023 · 296 MW · 79 11 Sept 2023 · 1,403 MW · 88 13 Sept 2023 · 257 MW · 22 14 Sept 2023 · 1,080 MW · 54 15 Sept 2023 · 4,317 MW · 204 16 Sept 2023 · 272 MW · 49 17 Sept 2023 · 83 MW · 31 18 Sept 2023 · 274 MW · 29 22 Sept 2023 · 138 MW · 14 23 Sept 2023 · 2 MW · 1
8 Jul 16 Jul 13 Aug 21 Aug 29 Aug 2 Sept 8 Sept 17 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
66km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.3 mm on 23 Sept.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,675 ha in 2018, 20 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (198 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each census subdivision

  1. Bulkley-Nechako E where it started
    19,728 ha reached on 8 Jul
    1.1 %

Burnt area inside each census subdivision, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
7 Jul 22.2 °C 41 % 26 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 5
8 Jul 25.6 °C 33 % 25 km/h 1.9 mm Low 7
9 Jul 23.4 °C 41 % 27 km/h 2.1 mm Low 5
10 Jul 20.5 °C 45 % 35 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 5
11 Jul 20.2 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Jul 19.2 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
13 Jul 20.8 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
14 Jul 18.8 °C 55 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
15 Jul 18.8 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 12
16 Jul 17.5 °C 54 % 27 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 1
17 Jul 15.4 °C 51 % 44 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
18 Jul 16.6 °C 55 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
19 Jul 23.1 °C 34 % 16 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 3
20 Jul 26.3 °C 30 % 27 km/h 2.0 mm Low 5
21 Jul 18.7 °C 56 % 28 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 2
22 Jul 16.2 °C 52 % 36 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 1
23 Jul 14.9 °C 56 % 25 km/h 5.5 mm Very low 0
24 Jul 15.7 °C 63 % 21 km/h 9.5 mm Very low 0
25 Jul 10.0 °C 86 % 40 km/h 11.1 mm Very low 0
26 Jul 17.6 °C 45 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
27 Jul 15.1 °C 61 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 0
28 Jul 18.4 °C 45 % 26 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 1
29 Jul 19.5 °C 47 % 22 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 0
30 Jul 17.9 °C 45 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 1
31 Jul 18.1 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 3
1 Aug 18.0 °C 40 % 24 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 1
2 Aug 16.2 °C 49 % 28 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 1
3 Aug 21.5 °C 26 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
4 Aug 24.1 °C 26 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
5 Aug 26.5 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
6 Aug 22.9 °C 44 % 25 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 4
7 Aug 21.4 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm Low 6
8 Aug 16.5 °C 72 % 30 km/h 7.2 mm Very low 0
9 Aug 16.3 °C 55 % 45 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 1
10 Aug 16.8 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 3
11 Aug 15.4 °C 65 % 33 km/h 4.8 mm Very low 0
12 Aug 20.3 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
13 Aug 24.6 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
14 Aug 24.0 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
15 Aug 23.8 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
16 Aug 25.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
17 Aug 20.7 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Aug 15.0 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 13
19 Aug 19.3 °C 30 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 Aug 19.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
21 Aug 21.4 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
22 Aug 18.2 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.8 mm Low 8
23 Aug 17.0 °C 54 % 26 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 1
24 Aug 19.5 °C 47 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
25 Aug 19.9 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
26 Aug 22.9 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
27 Aug 25.5 °C 18 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
28 Aug 26.1 °C 25 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
29 Aug 18.7 °C 58 % 24 km/h 1.1 mm Low 7
30 Aug 17.4 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
31 Aug 18.1 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
1 Sept 22.8 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
2 Sept 22.4 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Sept 16.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Sept 14.7 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
5 Sept 10.6 °C 62 % 28 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 1
6 Sept 13.1 °C 66 % 24 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 0
7 Sept 15.8 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
8 Sept 19.2 °C 34 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
9 Sept 21.7 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
10 Sept 23.2 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
11 Sept 17.3 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
12 Sept 14.2 °C 60 % 38 km/h 2.3 mm Very low 4
13 Sept 14.9 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
14 Sept 20.9 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
15 Sept 16.5 °C 41 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Sept 15.3 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
17 Sept 13.8 °C 59 % 59 km/h 1.8 mm Low 6
18 Sept 11.6 °C 49 % 53 km/h 0.6 mm Low 8
19 Sept 10.3 °C 61 % 46 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 0
20 Sept 13.8 °C 45 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
21 Sept 18.0 °C 46 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
22 Sept 19.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
23 Sept after 12.8 °C 50 % 39 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2023
After · 29 Sept 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 14 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 896 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 470: 31 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak896 µg/m³
Days over the guideline59 days
PM101,282 µg/m³
Optical depth8.03
56789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 5,300Every 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 Canada ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bulkley-Nechako E fire last?
It burned between 7 July 2023 and 22 September 2023: 78 days, according to the dates recorded by Canada’s CWFIS and the heat detections seen by satellite.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 19,816 hectares (198.2 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire only entered Bulkley-Nechako E (19,728 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the official burnt perimeter of Canada’s CWFIS (NBAC, Natural Resources Canada) or, for the current season and until NBAC publishes it, the one rebuilt by GWIS (Copernicus); from NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots; and from the administrative boundaries of Canada. 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: NBAC (Natural Resources Canada), official.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5,300 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter is official: it comes from the National Burned Area Composite (NBAC) of the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS), Natural Resources Canada, which maps it on satellite imagery and publishes it under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Until NBAC publishes the current season, this year’s fires carry the perimeter rebuilt from heat detections by GWIS (Copernicus, CC BY 4.0), which is approximate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Census subdivision boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per census subdivision is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from official figures.