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Fort Lyons Fire, April 2022 Bent

Out · last detection 12 Apr 2022, 20:32 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2022 in Bent, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,070 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 90th largest in Colorado since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 292 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Burnt area
1,070ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
12 Apr 2022 – 12 Apr 2022
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Apr
2022
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
73
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
189MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr12 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

12

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
77km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 620 ha in 2019, 28 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Bent where it started
    1,074 ha reached on 12 Apr
    0.3 %

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)
12 Apr 25.5 °C 13 % 77 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
13 Apr after 11.8 °C 10 % 63 km/h 0.9 mm High 32
14 Apr after 19.9 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Apr after 26.0 °C 7 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
16 Apr after 15.0 °C 22 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Apr after 23.6 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Apr after 19.3 °C 27 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Apr after 29.9 °C 7 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
20 Apr after 27.1 °C 7 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
21 Apr after 30.5 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
22 Apr after 35.4 °C 2 % 99 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 135

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2022
After · 19 Apr 2022

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 · 4Every 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 Fort Lyons fire last?
It burned between 12 April 2022 and 12 April 2022: 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 1,070 hectares (10.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Bent (1,074 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 77 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, 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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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.