Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States · →

Canyon Fire, September 2016 Santa Barbara

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2016, 20:14 UTC

The fire started on 18 September 2016 in Santa Barbara, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 5,170 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 129th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 71 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area
5,170ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
18 Sept 2016 – 18 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
18 Sept
2016
Heat detections
431
in a single hotspot: 635 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
8.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Sept18 Sept

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

24°high
46km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Santa Barbara where it started
    5,198 ha reached on 18 Sept
    0.7 %

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 Sept 23.5 °C 42 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Sept after 22.6 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 12
20 Sept after 21.8 °C 65 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Sept after 19.4 °C 58 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Sept after 16.8 °C 54 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Sept after 19.3 °C 43 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Sept after 22.9 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Sept after 25.6 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Sept after 27.8 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Sept after 29.6 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Sept after 22.1 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
29 Sept after 20.3 °C 61 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Sept after 19.5 °C 60 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Oct after 20.1 °C 47 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Sept 2016
After · 25 Sept 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 · 431Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Canyon fire last?
It burned between 18 September 2016 and 18 September 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 5,170 hectares (51.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Santa Barbara (5,198 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.5 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
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.

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.

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.