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Cariboo I fire, 1 August 2018 Cariboo I

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2018, 10:30 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2018 in Cariboo I, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 11,320 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 99th largest in British Columbia since 2016 (of 448 with a page). Number 33 in Canada in 2018, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cariboo I · 2021Cariboo I · 2026Cariboo I · 2023Cariboo I · 2023

Burnt area
11,320ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
40days
1 Aug 2018 – 9 Sept 2018
Census subdivisions hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Aug
2018
Heat detections
2,940
in a single hotspot: 397 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
910MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug9 Sept
9 Sept 2018

How it evolved, day by day

1 Aug 2018 · 18 MW · 4 2 Aug 2018 · 1 MW · 1 6 Aug 2018 · 2 MW · 4 9 Aug 2018 · 7 MW · 1 10 Aug 2018 · 781 MW · 74 11 Aug 2018 · 371 MW · 121 12 Aug 2018 · 3,868 MW · 200 13 Aug 2018 · 1,817 MW · 216 14 Aug 2018 · 5,186 MW · 229 15 Aug 2018 · 251 MW · 56 16 Aug 2018 · 390 MW · 55 17 Aug 2018 · 543 MW · 146 18 Aug 2018 · 1,168 MW · 127 19 Aug 2018 · 549 MW · 126 20 Aug 2018 · 1,290 MW · 141 21 Aug 2018 · 2,425 MW · 189 22 Aug 2018 · 2,773 MW · 381 23 Aug 2018 · 3,953 MW · 270 24 Aug 2018 · 2,193 MW · 235 25 Aug 2018 · 16 MW · 3 26 Aug 2018 · 25 MW · 3 27 Aug 2018 · 51 MW · 10 28 Aug 2018 · 716 MW · 114 29 Aug 2018 · 101 MW · 8 30 Aug 2018 · 256 MW · 32 31 Aug 2018 · 75 MW · 18 1 Sept 2018 · 736 MW · 130 3 Sept 2018 · 3 MW · 1 4 Sept 2018 · 211 MW · 22 5 Sept 2018 · 24 MW · 5 7 Sept 2018 · 237 MW · 12 8 Sept 2018 · 1 MW · 1 9 Sept 2018 · 6 MW · 5
1 Aug 11 Aug 14 Aug 16 Aug 21 Aug 26 Aug 31 Aug 7 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

30°high
62km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 10 Sept.

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 7.1% of the area of London (113 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 I where it started
    11,332 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.9 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
1 Aug 24.5 °C 39 % 35 km/h 2.3 mm Low 6
2 Aug 22.7 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
3 Aug 22.0 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
4 Aug 22.2 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
5 Aug 26.4 °C 27 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Aug 27.9 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Aug 28.3 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug 28.6 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Aug 29.5 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Aug 27.6 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug 19.0 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
12 Aug 23.5 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Aug 25.7 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Aug 26.8 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Aug 20.9 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Aug 25.2 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Aug 23.0 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Aug 22.1 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Aug 23.5 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Aug 24.7 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Aug 28.5 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Aug 24.8 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug 17.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Aug 19.5 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Aug 16.4 °C 52 % 39 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 5
26 Aug 15.7 °C 48 % 43 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 3
27 Aug 21.3 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
28 Aug 22.9 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
29 Aug 16.9 °C 44 % 40 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 4
30 Aug 17.5 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm Low 9
31 Aug 16.5 °C 41 % 62 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
1 Sept 15.5 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
2 Sept 14.9 °C 47 % 56 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 4
3 Sept 14.2 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6
4 Sept 17.6 °C 34 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
5 Sept 18.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
6 Sept 18.3 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
7 Sept 20.5 °C 38 % 29 km/h 1.6 mm Low 6
8 Sept 18.1 °C 34 % 28 km/h 1.3 mm Low 6
9 Sept 13.2 °C 75 % 33 km/h 7.5 mm Very low 0
10 Sept after 16.7 °C 44 % 32 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2018
After · 16 Sept 2018

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 · 2,940Every 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 I fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 August 2018 to 9 September 2018 (40 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2018 to 7 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 11,320 hectares (113.2 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire only entered Cariboo I (11,332 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: NBAC (Natural Resources Canada), official.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 August 2018 to 7 September 2018. 2,940 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 2020, 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.