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Kelton Fire, August 2017 Box Elder

Out · last measured on 23 Aug 2017

The fire started on 23 August 2017 in Box Elder, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,710 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 80th largest in Utah since 2016 (of 165 with a page). Number 283 in United States in 2017, of 619.

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
1,710ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
23 Aug 2017 – 23 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
23 Aug
2017
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

29°high
38km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 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. Box Elder where it started
    1,717 ha
    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)
23 Aug 29.2 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug after 31.9 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Aug after 33.3 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug after 35.7 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Aug after 36.1 °C 3 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Aug after 36.0 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Aug after 35.1 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Very extreme 73
30 Aug after 32.4 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 57
31 Aug after 29.6 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.9 mm High 32
1 Sept after 32.0 °C 13 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Sept after 34.7 °C 6 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2017
After · 30 Aug 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kelton fire last?
It burned between 23 August 2017 and 23 August 2017: 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 1,710 hectares (17.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Box Elder (1,717 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

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.