Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States · →

Kelso Fire, June 2016 Mesa

Out · last detection 15 Jun 2016, 20:15 UTC

The fire started on 14 June 2016 in Mesa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 638 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 129th largest in Colorado since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 356 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area
638ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
14 Jun 2016 – 14 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
14 Jun
2016
Heat detections
79
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
6MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jun14 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

15

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
71km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 1 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mesa where it started
    639 ha reached on 15 Jun
    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)
14 Jun 22.6 °C 12 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jun after 25.3 °C 4 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Jun after 24.0 °C 9 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jun after 26.1 °C 8 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jun after 29.5 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Jun after 30.3 °C 7 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jun after 31.5 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jun after 31.9 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Jun after 28.0 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Jun after 28.2 °C 15 % 49 km/h 1.4 mm High 33
24 Jun after 25.4 °C 13 % 62 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 45
25 Jun after 28.0 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jun after 29.0 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jun after 30.0 °C 7 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jun after 29.5 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jun after 25.4 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.9 mm High 27
30 Jun after 23.3 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
1 Jul after 19.1 °C 42 % 43 km/h 2.2 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jun 2016
After · 21 Jun 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 · 79Every 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 Kelso fire last?
It burned between 14 June 2016 and 14 June 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 638 hectares (6.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Mesa (639 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.