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Highlands fire, 19 April 2018 Highlands, Polk

Out · last measured on 19 Apr 2018

The fire started on 19 April 2018 in Highlands, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,193 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 62th largest in Florida since 2016 (of 148 with a page). Number 282 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
1,193ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
19 Apr 2018 – 19 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
19 Apr
2018
Heat detections
28
in a single hotspot: 100 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Apr19 Apr

The weather it burned in

32°high
64km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 21 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Highlands where it started
    1,194 ha reached on 12 Apr
    0.4 %
  2. Polk
    6 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)
12 Apr 28.1 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
13 Apr 29.1 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
14 Apr 31.1 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
15 Apr 31.9 °C 48 % 64 km/h 8.7 mm Very low 4
16 Apr 22.8 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
17 Apr 26.2 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
18 Apr 30.6 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 Apr 31.2 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
20 Apr after 29.8 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Apr after 28.8 °C 55 % 40 km/h 2.2 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Apr 2018
After · 26 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 · 28Every 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 Highlands fire last?
It burned between 19 April 2018 and 19 April 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 1,193 hectares (11.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Highlands (1,194 ha, 0.4 %); Polk (6 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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.