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CA · Canada · –

Cariboo F fire, 7 July 2017 Cariboo F

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2017, 10:48 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2017 in Cariboo F, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,831 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 202th largest in British Columbia since 2016 (of 343 with a page). Number 118 in Canada in 2017, of 242.

Burnt area
2,831ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
29days
7 Jul 2017 – 4 Aug 2017
Census subdivisions hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Jul
2017
Heat detections
764
in a single hotspot: 225 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
197MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul4 Aug
4 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

8 Jul 2017 · 92 MW · 28 9 Jul 2017 · 72 MW · 2 10 Jul 2017 · 58 MW · 26 11 Jul 2017 · 9 MW · 4 13 Jul 2017 · 20 MW · 5 14 Jul 2017 · 160 MW · 23 15 Jul 2017 · 1,079 MW · 18 16 Jul 2017 · 559 MW · 163 17 Jul 2017 · 489 MW · 53 18 Jul 2017 · 540 MW · 67 19 Jul 2017 · 713 MW · 114 20 Jul 2017 · 3 MW · 2 22 Jul 2017 · 4 MW · 2 23 Jul 2017 · 34 MW · 14 24 Jul 2017 · 273 MW · 35 25 Jul 2017 · 407 MW · 85 26 Jul 2017 · 273 MW · 63 27 Jul 2017 · 19 MW · 2 28 Jul 2017 · 2 MW · 2 29 Jul 2017 · 55 MW · 8 30 Jul 2017 · 38 MW · 8 31 Jul 2017 · 64 MW · 17 1 Aug 2017 · 125 MW · 13 2 Aug 2017 · 5 MW · 5 3 Aug 2017 · 23 MW · 4 4 Aug 2017 · 1 MW · 1
8 Jul 15 Jul 22 Jul 28 Jul 3 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
55km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.1 mm on 13 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (28 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. Cariboo F where it started
    2,807 ha reached on 8 Jul
    0.3 %

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 2015
Built-up area0.21 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.21 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 1.1 % of the area in Canada Strong wind: 15 % of the area in Canada Very dry air: 9.3 % of the area in Canada

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
7 Jul 31.6 °C 12 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Jul 26.7 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Jul 24.7 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
10 Jul 18.9 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Jul 23.1 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jul 24.3 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul 23.0 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Jul 26.3 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Jul 26.5 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
16 Jul 15.5 °C 41 % 50 km/h 3.1 mm Low 10
17 Jul 19.9 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
18 Jul 24.0 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Jul 25.6 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm High 27
20 Jul 15.4 °C 69 % 36 km/h 12.5 mm Very low 0
21 Jul 19.9 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
22 Jul 23.4 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
23 Jul 15.9 °C 47 % 44 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 4
24 Jul 21.6 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
25 Jul 26.5 °C 20 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Jul 27.4 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
27 Jul 23.8 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
28 Jul 24.3 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
29 Jul 28.4 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
30 Jul 24.2 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
31 Jul 24.4 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Aug 25.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Aug 28.2 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Aug 29.8 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Aug 26.8 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug after 27.9 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Aug after 29.2 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Aug after 29.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Aug after 29.0 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Aug after 30.9 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug after 31.9 °C 12 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug after 32.6 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug after 30.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 46
13 Aug after 17.4 °C 52 % 37 km/h 11.1 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 57.8, a minimum humidity of 12% and 16 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2018: 4.

FWI at the start 57.8
Minimum humidity 12 %
Days without rain 16
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Cariboo H fire, June 2021
3,013 ha 50 days FWI 54.3 Min. humidity 14 % 79 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 21 Aug.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 4. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

11.1 mmfirst rain
13 Aug9 days after it ended
55km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 4 Aug, and on 13 Aug 11.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2018.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2017
After · 11 Aug 2017

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 · 764Every 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 Cariboo F fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 July 2017 to 4 August 2017 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 July 2017 to 3 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 2,831 hectares (28.3 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire only entered Cariboo F (2,807 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
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.

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 July 2017 to 3 August 2017. 764 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 2015, 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.