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Hunt Fire, September 2019 Rio Blanco

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2019, 20:27 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2019 in Rio Blanco, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,301 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 84th largest in Colorado since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 177 in United States in 2019, of 367.

Burnt area
1,301ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
5 Sept 2019 – 5 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
5 Sept
2019
Heat detections
93
in a single hotspot: 659 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
72km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 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. Rio Blanco where it started
    1,288 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
5 Sept 31.9 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 44
6 Sept after 31.3 °C 15 % 45 km/h 1.5 mm High 37
7 Sept after 27.5 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
8 Sept after 22.6 °C 31 % 57 km/h 9.5 mm Low 7
9 Sept after 24.5 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
10 Sept after 22.3 °C 30 % 60 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
11 Sept after 17.5 °C 39 % 67 km/h 21.7 mm Very low 2
12 Sept after 18.3 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
13 Sept after 23.3 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Sept after 25.9 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Sept after 26.2 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Sept after 23.4 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Sept after 22.8 °C 22 % 72 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 42
18 Sept after 23.3 °C 18 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Sept after 25.3 °C 15 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept after 20.8 °C 11 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Sept after 18.9 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Sept after 20.1 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Sept after 24.3 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept after 23.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept after 25.0 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Sept after 25.0 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Sept after 21.7 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.4 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2019
After · 12 Sept 2019

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 · 93Every 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 Hunt fire last?
It burned between 5 September 2019 and 5 September 2019: 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 1,301 hectares (13.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Rio Blanco (1,288 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.