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Hill Fire, July 2024 Humboldt

Out · last detection 17 Jul 2024, 22:08 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2024 in Humboldt, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,867 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 172th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 116 in United States in 2024, of 371.

Burnt area
2,867ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
16 Jul 2024 – 16 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Jul
2024
Heat detections
340
in a single hotspot: 471 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jul 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1617

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
45km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 162 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Humboldt where it started
    2,904 ha reached on 16 Jul
    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)
16 Jul 20.9 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Jul after 20.9 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jul after 21.9 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Jul after 22.1 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
20 Jul after 19.0 °C 54 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jul after 19.6 °C 57 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Jul after 21.3 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Jul after 27.0 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
24 Jul after 24.7 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
25 Jul after 20.7 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Jul after 20.4 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
27 Jul after 18.0 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Jul after 19.4 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Jul after 20.3 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Jul after 21.1 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
31 Jul after 23.7 °C 46 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Aug after 24.7 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
2 Aug after 22.6 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2024
After · 23 Jul 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 18 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak53 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1075 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
141516171819
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 340Every 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 Hill fire last?
It burned between 16 July 2024 and 16 July 2024: 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 2,867 hectares (28.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Humboldt (2,904 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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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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.