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Cypress County fire, July 2019 Cypress County

Out · last measured on 24 Jul 2019

The fire started on 24 July 2019 in Cypress County, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,294 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 213th largest in Alberta since 2016 (of 243 with a page). Number 87 in Canada in 2019, of 97.

Burnt area
1,294ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
1day
24 Jul 2019 – 24 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Jul
2019
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul24 Jul

The weather it burned in

30°high
69km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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. Cypress County where it started
    1,293 ha reached on 27 Jul
    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)
24 Jul 29.8 °C 21 % 69 km/h 2.1 mm High 26
25 Jul after 26.1 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Jul after 29.4 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
27 Jul after 32.5 °C 15 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jul after 22.3 °C 42 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Jul after 29.3 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Jul after 31.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul after 31.0 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Aug after 32.8 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Aug after 34.4 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
3 Aug after 28.7 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2019
After · 31 Jul 2019

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 · 2Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cypress County fire last?
It burned between 24 July 2019 and 24 July 2019: 1 day, according to the dates recorded by Canada’s CWFIS and the heat detections seen by satellite.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 1,294 hectares (12.9 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire only entered Cypress County (1,293 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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

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.

Report an error
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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: 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.