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Kitchen Fire, July 2023 Hidalgo

Out · last measured on 9 Jul 2023

The fire started on 9 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 593 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 167th largest in New Mexico since 2016 (of 204 with a page). Number 235 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
593ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
9 Jul 2023 – 9 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Jul
2023
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

37°high
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 11 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. Hidalgo where it started
    585 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)
9 Jul 37.4 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 60
10 Jul after 37.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 50
11 Jul after 36.3 °C 21 % 45 km/h 1.8 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2023
After · 16 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 12 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
789101112
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kitchen fire last?
It burned between 9 July 2023 and 9 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 593 hectares (5.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Hidalgo (585 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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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.