How long did the Hummingbird Fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (20 April 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 20 May 2026 (31 days from 20 April 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 2,312 hectares (23.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Catron (2,298 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 25.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 90 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

US · United States · 2026-04-20 → 2026-05-20

Hummingbird Fire, April 2026 Catron

Out · last detection 20 May 2026, 20:53 UTC

The fire started on 20 April 2026 in Catron, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,312 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 70th largest in New Mexico since 2016 (of 204 with a page). Number 164 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Turkeyfeather · 2025 Cub · 2020 Johnson · 2021 Divide · 2023

Burnt area: 2,312ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: ≈ 31days; 20 Apr 2026 – 20 May 2026
Counties hit: 1; counties
Started on: 20 Apr; 2026
Heat detections: 490; in a single hotspot: 215 MW
Danger at start: 12; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 726MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Apr20 May

Play back 20 May 2026

How it evolved, day by day

23 Apr 26 Apr 28 Apr 29 Apr 11 May 17 May

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

90km/h · peak gust

6%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.9 mm on 25 May.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 55 ha in 2025.

55 ha Turkeyfeather fire, June 2025 9,498 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.5% of the area of London (23 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each county

Catron where it started

2,298 ha reached on 23 Apr

0.1 %

Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
20 Apr	18.2 °C	23 %	34 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 12
21 Apr	20.3 °C	14 %	47 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
22 Apr	18.8 °C	10 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Apr	17.1 °C	13 %	67 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Apr	17.7 °C	12 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
25 Apr	16.4 °C	18 %	59 km/h	0.4 mm	High 35
26 Apr	14.9 °C	22 %	90 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 Apr	15.6 °C	11 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Apr	18.8 °C	7 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Apr	18.7 °C	8 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
30 Apr	18.4 °C	16 %	55 km/h	0.7 mm	High 32
1 May	16.1 °C	20 %	34 km/h	2.5 mm	Low 6
2 May	12.8 °C	54 %	37 km/h	14.4 mm	Very low 0
3 May	15.9 °C	33 %	52 km/h	0.6 mm	Very low 4
4 May	17.0 °C	22 %	64 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 13
5 May	10.6 °C	64 %	72 km/h	9.3 mm	Very low 0
6 May	15.3 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 3
7 May	18.8 °C	16 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
8 May	21.8 °C	14 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
9 May	23.0 °C	15 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
10 May	23.3 °C	10 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
11 May	23.9 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
12 May	25.9 °C	11 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
13 May	23.1 °C	15 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
14 May	22.5 °C	17 %	56 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
15 May	22.7 °C	8 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
16 May	22.3 °C	9 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
17 May	20.2 °C	10 %	68 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
18 May	19.2 °C	15 %	70 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 May	20.8 °C	13 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 May	20.4 °C	6 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
21 May after	20.3 °C	13 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
22 May after	21.0 °C	10 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
23 May after	22.5 °C	10 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
24 May after	24.4 °C	12 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
25 May after	17.0 °C	32 %	48 km/h	7.9 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Apr 2026

After · 27 May 2026

Before After

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 27 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1038 µg/m³

Optical depth0.23

WHO 15

18192021222324252627282930

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 · 490Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hummingbird Fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (20 April 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 20 May 2026 (31 days from 20 April 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 2,312 hectares (23.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Catron (2,298 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 25.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 90 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: NIFC WFIGS (United States), official.
The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 490 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned