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Central Fire, June 2020 Maricopa

Out · last detection 21 Jun 2020, 08:47 UTC

The fire started on 20 June 2020 in Maricopa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,909 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 138th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 187 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
1,909ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
20 Jun 2020 – 20 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
20 Jun
2020
Heat detections
45
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
444MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jun 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jun20 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

2021

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
42km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 349 ha in 2018, 352 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 380 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maricopa where it started
    1,935 ha reached on 20 Jun
    0.1 %

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)
20 Jun 34.9 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Jun after 36.6 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
22 Jun after 36.9 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
23 Jun after 37.1 °C 6 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
24 Jun after 37.9 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
25 Jun after 35.6 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
26 Jun after 36.8 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
27 Jun after 35.4 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
28 Jun after 32.8 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
29 Jun after 30.0 °C 17 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
30 Jun after 30.9 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Jul after 32.9 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jun 2020
After · 27 Jun 2020

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 · 45Every 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 Central fire last?
It burned between 20 June 2020 and 20 June 2020: 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 1,909 hectares (19.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Maricopa (1,935 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, class Extreme.
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.