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Chip (47) Fire, February 2018 Okeechobee

Out · last detection 4 Feb 2018, 17:58 UTC

The fire started on 4 February 2018 in Okeechobee, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 575 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 113th largest in Florida since 2016 (of 148 with a page). Number 436 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
575ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
4 Feb 2018 – 4 Feb 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
4 Feb
2018
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
264MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Feb4 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

4

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
47km/h · peak gust
45%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days 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. Okeechobee where it started
    576 ha reached on 4 Feb
    0.2 %

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)
4 Feb 27.2 °C 51 % 46 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 4
5 Feb after 24.0 °C 55 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 5
6 Feb after 26.8 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
7 Feb after 27.5 °C 60 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
8 Feb after 29.2 °C 55 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
9 Feb after 28.6 °C 55 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Low 9
10 Feb after 29.0 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
11 Feb after 29.5 °C 59 % 47 km/h 1.2 mm Low 6
12 Feb after 30.2 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
13 Feb after 28.6 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
14 Feb after 25.7 °C 62 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Low 9
15 Feb after 27.9 °C 48 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
16 Feb after 30.1 °C 40 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
17 Feb after 29.8 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
18 Feb after 30.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
19 Feb after 29.1 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Feb after 30.3 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Feb after 29.0 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Feb after 29.2 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
23 Feb after 27.7 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
24 Feb after 28.6 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jan 2018
After · 11 Feb 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 · 10Every 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 Chip (47) fire last?
It burned between 4 February 2018 and 4 February 2018: 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 575 hectares (5.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Okeechobee (576 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Low.
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.