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Dead Dog Fire, June 2017 Rio Blanco, Moffat

Out · last detection 12 Jun 2017, 20:26 UTC

The fire started on 11 June 2017 in Rio Blanco, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 7,209 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 24th largest in Colorado since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 109 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Burnt area
7,209ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
11 Jun 2017 – 11 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
11 Jun
2017
Heat detections
152
in a single hotspot: 347 MW
Danger at start
73
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jun11 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1112

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
104km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 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. Rio Blanco where it started
    6,116 ha reached on 11 Jun
    0.7 %
  2. Moffat
    1,107 ha reached on 12 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)
11 Jun 30.9 °C 11 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
12 Jun after 28.5 °C 9 % 104 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 113
13 Jun after 21.9 °C 18 % 75 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
14 Jun after 28.5 °C 11 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jun after 31.3 °C 8 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
16 Jun after 32.9 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Jun after 31.2 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jun after 32.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jun after 32.3 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jun after 36.2 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 62
21 Jun after 35.5 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
22 Jun after 35.4 °C 8 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
23 Jun after 29.6 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Jun after 29.8 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jun 2017
After · 18 Jun 2017

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 · 152Every 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 Dead Dog fire last?
It burned between 11 June 2017 and 11 June 2017: 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 7,209 hectares (72.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Rio Blanco (6,116 ha, 0.7 %); Moffat (1,107 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 104 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 113, class Very 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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What do you think is wrong?

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.