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Good Fire, March 2018 Lea, Chaves

Out · last detection 31 Mar 2018, 20:50 UTC

The fire started on 31 March 2018 in Lea, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,834 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 83th largest in New Mexico since 2016 (of 204 with a page). Number 215 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
1,834ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
31 Mar 2018 – 31 Mar 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
31 Mar
2018
Heat detections
47
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
537MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Mar31 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

31

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
44km/h · peak gust
6%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. Lea where it started
    1,851 ha reached on 31 Mar
    0.2 %
  2. Chaves
    4 ha
    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)
31 Mar 27.3 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Apr after 25.3 °C 8 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Apr after 28.1 °C 4 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 Apr after 24.1 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
4 Apr after 18.7 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Apr after 26.8 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Apr after 25.2 °C 12 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
7 Apr after 16.3 °C 26 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Apr after 31.1 °C 8 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
9 Apr after 24.2 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Apr after 22.9 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Mar 2018
After · 7 Apr 2018

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 · 47Every 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 Good fire last?
It burned between 31 March 2018 and 31 March 2018: 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 1,834 hectares (18.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Lea (1,851 ha, 0.2 %); Chaves (4 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.3 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.