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Bush Fire, June 2020 Maricopa, Gila

Out · last detection 14 Jun 2020, 20:37 UTC

The fire started on 13 June 2020 in Maricopa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 85,949 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 2th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 7 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
85,949ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
13 Jun 2020 – 13 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
13 Jun
2020
Heat detections
3,098
in a single hotspot: 658 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jun13 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

14

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
84km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 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. Maricopa where it started
    45,384 ha reached on 14 Jun
    1.9 %
  2. Gila
    41,106 ha reached on 15 Jun
    3.3 %

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)
13 Jun 29.6 °C 6 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Jun after 28.4 °C 8 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Jun after 29.3 °C 9 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Jun after 29.6 °C 7 % 84 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
17 Jun after 28.3 °C 9 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Jun after 27.5 °C 7 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Jun after 28.1 °C 6 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Jun after 29.7 °C 9 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Jun after 30.9 °C 9 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Jun after 31.3 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Jun after 31.6 °C 8 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Jun after 32.3 °C 7 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
25 Jun after 32.3 °C 4 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
26 Jun after 31.9 °C 5 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Jun after 30.0 °C 11 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
28 Jun after 28.5 °C 14 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Jun after 26.7 °C 15 % 83 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
30 Jun after 26.4 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jun 2020
After · 20 Jun 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.

Detections table · 3,098Every 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 Bush fire last?
It burned between 13 June 2020 and 13 June 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 85,949 hectares (859.5 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Maricopa (45,384 ha, 1.9 %); Gila (41,106 ha, 3.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 84 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
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.