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Choulic 2 Fire, October 2016 Pima

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2016, 21:28 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2016 in Pima, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 489 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 344th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 432 in United States in 2016, of 475.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
489ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
16 Oct 2016 – 16 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Oct
2016
Heat detections
16
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
87MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

17

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
41km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 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. Pima where it started
    484 ha reached on 17 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
16 Oct 28.7 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Oct after 28.0 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Oct after 27.7 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Oct after 27.6 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Oct after 31.3 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Oct after 31.3 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Oct after 29.5 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Oct after 28.2 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Oct after 27.3 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Oct after 27.2 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Oct after 29.3 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Oct after 31.4 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Oct after 28.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Oct after 28.7 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Oct after 27.7 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Oct 2016
After · 23 Oct 2016

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 · 16Every 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 Choulic 2 fire last?
It burned between 16 October 2016 and 16 October 2016: 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 489 hectares (4.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Pima (484 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
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.