How long did the Clearwater County fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 August 2018 to 11 August 2018 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 August 2018 to 10 August 2018.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 1,161 hectares (11.6 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.

Which census subdivisions burned?

The fire only entered Clearwater County (1,146 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.

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 · 2018-08-07 → 2018-08-11

Clearwater County fire, August 2018 Clearwater County

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2018, 09:33 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2018 in Clearwater County, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,161 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 227th largest in Alberta since 2016 (of 243 with a page). Number 197 in Canada in 2018, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Improvement District No. 9 B* · 2022

Burnt area: 1,161ha; official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration: 5days; 7 Aug 2018 – 11 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 7 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 159; in a single hotspot: 506 MW
Danger at start: 6; Low · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.4GW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 11 Aug 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 9 Aug 10 Aug 11 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

27°high

55km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.3 mm on 11 Aug.

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 0.7% of the area of London (12 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 town

Clearwater County where it started

1,146 ha reached on 8 Aug

0.1 %

Burnt area inside each census subdivision, 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)
7 Aug	21.7 °C	30 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
8 Aug	23.4 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
9 Aug	26.8 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
10 Aug	27.4 °C	21 %	55 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 13
11 Aug	17.4 °C	55 %	52 km/h	7.3 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Jul 2018

After · 18 Aug 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 · 159Every 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

3,549 haImprovement District No. 9 B*August 2022 · 51 days · 34 km away

All fires in Canada ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Clearwater County fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 August 2018 to 11 August 2018 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 August 2018 to 10 August 2018.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 1,161 hectares (11.6 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?: The fire only entered Clearwater County (1,146 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
CWFIS · Interactive map ↗

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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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?

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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 7 August 2018 to 10 August 2018. 159 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.

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