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Junkins Fire, October 2016 Custer, Pueblo

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2016, 19:30 UTC

The fire started on 17 October 2016 in Custer, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 7,692 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 22th largest in Colorado since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 47 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area
7,692ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
17 Oct 2016 – 17 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
17 Oct
2016
Heat detections
393
in a single hotspot: 267 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1718

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

The weather it burned in

19°high
80km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 2 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Custer where it started
    7,230 ha reached on 17 Oct
    3.8 %
  2. Pueblo
    484 ha reached on 17 Oct
    0.1 %

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)
17 Oct 18.6 °C 11 % 80 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Oct after 12.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Oct after 9.8 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Oct after 10.9 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Oct after 17.9 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Oct after 18.7 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Oct after 16.2 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Oct after 16.7 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Oct after 14.6 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
26 Oct after 15.5 °C 17 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Oct after 19.3 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Oct after 17.3 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Oct after 17.9 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Oct after 14.9 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Oct after 17.3 °C 13 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Nov after 11.7 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
2 Nov after 7.6 °C 34 % 34 km/h 1.1 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Oct 2016
After · 24 Oct 2016

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 · 393Every 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 Junkins fire last?
It burned between 17 October 2016 and 17 October 2016: 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 7,692 hectares (76.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Custer (7,230 ha, 3.8 %); Pueblo (484 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 19.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.