How long did the Cariboo J fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2018 to 8 September 2018 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2018 to 5 September 2018.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 64,269 hectares (642.7 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.

Which census subdivisions burned?

The fire entered 2 census subdivisions: Bulkley-Nechako E (63,262 ha, 3.6 %); Cariboo J (232 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 24.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.

CA · Canada · 2018-08-08 → 2018-09-08

Cariboo J fire, 8 August 2018 Bulkley-Nechako E, Cariboo J

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2018, 10:48 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2018 in Cariboo J, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 64,269 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 census subdivisions.

It is the 22th largest in British Columbia since 2016 (of 448 with a page). Number 5 in Canada in 2018, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bulkley-Nechako E · 2023 Cariboo J · 2018 Bulkley-Nechako E · 2018 Bulkley-Nechako E · 2024

Burnt area: 64,269ha; official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration: 32days; 8 Aug 2018 – 8 Sept 2018
Census subdivisions hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 8 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 17,621; in a single hotspot: 2,795 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 13.5GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug8 Sept

Play back 8 Sept 2018

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 13 Aug 17 Aug 18 Aug 23 Aug 28 Aug 2 Sept 8 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

25°high

57km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.2 mm on 9 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 41% of the area of London (643 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

Bulkley-Nechako E

63,262 ha reached on 8 Aug

3.6 %
Cariboo J where it started

232 ha reached on 8 Aug

0.0 %

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)
8 Aug	22.2 °C	39 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
9 Aug	21.3 °C	38 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
10 Aug	21.0 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
11 Aug	17.3 °C	38 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
12 Aug	20.9 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
13 Aug	22.2 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
14 Aug	21.2 °C	35 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
15 Aug	17.9 °C	40 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
16 Aug	20.4 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Aug	18.7 °C	35 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
18 Aug	20.1 °C	33 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
19 Aug	20.9 °C	32 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
20 Aug	21.3 °C	29 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
21 Aug	24.6 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Aug	19.0 °C	40 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
23 Aug	13.9 °C	46 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
24 Aug	15.9 °C	43 %	39 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 21
25 Aug	12.9 °C	59 %	42 km/h	2.5 mm	Very low 5
26 Aug	14.4 °C	47 %	36 km/h	2.1 mm	Very low 4
27 Aug	18.4 °C	41 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
28 Aug	17.3 °C	49 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
29 Aug	13.0 °C	51 %	40 km/h	0.7 mm	Low 11
30 Aug	13.9 °C	50 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
31 Aug	11.1 °C	64 %	57 km/h	1.1 mm	Low 8
1 Sept	11.9 °C	49 %	39 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 10
2 Sept	9.8 °C	62 %	57 km/h	1.9 mm	Low 6
3 Sept	12.5 °C	42 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
4 Sept	15.2 °C	34 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
5 Sept	14.7 °C	40 %	15 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
6 Sept	14.8 °C	48 %	28 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 7
7 Sept	12.6 °C	63 %	30 km/h	4.6 mm	Very low 0
8 Sept	11.9 °C	56 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	Very low 3
9 Sept after	12.0 °C	64 %	35 km/h	12.2 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2018

After · 15 Sept 2018

Before After

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 · 17,621Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Canada ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cariboo J fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2018 to 8 September 2018 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2018 to 5 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 64,269 hectares (642.7 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?: The fire entered 2 census subdivisions: Bulkley-Nechako E (63,262 ha, 3.6 %); Cariboo J (232 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 24.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
CWFIS · Interactive map ↗

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 8 August 2018 to 5 September 2018. 17,621 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.

Where it burned