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Jackson Fire, July 2023 Hidalgo

Out · last measured on 14 Jul 2023

The fire started on 14 July 2023 in Hidalgo, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 472 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 192th largest in New Mexico since 2016 (of 204 with a page). Number 271 in United States in 2023, of 305.

We have the official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC) for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by county is there.

Burnt area
472ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
14 Jul 2023 – 14 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
14 Jul
2023
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

38°high
39km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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. Hidalgo where it started
    472 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)
14 Jul 38.0 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 57
15 Jul after 39.3 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
16 Jul after 37.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 49
17 Jul after 39.1 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
18 Jul after 39.0 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Jul after 40.2 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
20 Jul after 39.8 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
21 Jul after 39.4 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
22 Jul after 36.4 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.3 mm Very extreme 77
23 Jul after 34.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Jul after 37.7 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2023
After · 21 Jul 2023

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 14 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.32
121314151617
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)

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Jackson fire last?
It burned between 14 July 2023 and 14 July 2023: 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 472 hectares (4.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Hidalgo (472 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.