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Half Way Fire, November 2016 Clay

Out · last detection 13 Nov 2016, 18:00 UTC

The fire started on 12 November 2016 in Clay, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 421 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 12th largest in Alabama since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 469 in United States in 2016, of 475.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
421ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
12 Nov 2016 – 12 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Nov
2016
Heat detections
32
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
10MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Nov12 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

13

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

The weather it burned in

19°high
37km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 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. Clay where it started
    418 ha reached on 13 Nov
    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 Nov 18.6 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Nov after 17.7 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Nov after 18.8 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Nov after 19.4 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
16 Nov after 21.9 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Nov after 25.2 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Nov after 24.7 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Nov after 13.7 °C 23 % 54 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
20 Nov after 12.6 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Nov after 15.5 °C 11 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Nov after 18.8 °C 9 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Nov 2016
After · 19 Nov 2016

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 · 32Every 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 Half Way fire last?
It burned between 12 November 2016 and 12 November 2016: 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 421 hectares (4.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Clay (418 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 18.6 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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.