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Camp Roberts Fire, May 2016 San Luis Obispo

Out · last detection 19 May 2016, 10:41 UTC

The fire started on 18 May 2016 in San Luis Obispo, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,800 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 219th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 173 in United States in 2016, of 475.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.9 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
1,800ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
18 May 2016 – 18 May 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
18 May
2016
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
35MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 May 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 May18 May

How it evolved, day by day

1819

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
48km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 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. San Luis Obispo where it started
    1,796 ha reached on 14 May
    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)
14 May 27.9 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 May 26.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 May 27.6 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 May 29.9 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 May 31.3 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 May after 25.5 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 May after 19.9 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 May after 19.7 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 May after 22.3 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 May after 22.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 May after 20.9 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
25 May after 24.0 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 May after 25.9 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 May after 28.1 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 May after 27.7 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 May after 24.7 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 May 2016
After · 25 May 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 · 23Every 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 Camp Roberts fire last?
It burned between 18 May 2016 and 18 May 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 1,800 hectares (18.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered San Luis Obispo (1,796 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 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.