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Left Fork Fire, May 2022 Kane

Out · last detection 10 May 2022, 08:46 UTC

The fire started on 9 May 2022 in Kane, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,749 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 79th largest in Utah since 2016 (of 165 with a page). Number 221 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Burnt area
1,749ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
9 May 2022 – 9 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 May
2022
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
139MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 May 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 May9 May

How it evolved, day by day

910

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

The weather it burned in

12°high
72km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 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. Kane where it started
    1,762 ha reached on 9 May
    0.2 %

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 May 9.4 °C 10 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 May after 11.9 °C 7 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 May after 12.5 °C 4 % 86 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 May after 13.1 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 May after 19.1 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 May after 23.0 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 May after 23.5 °C 5 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 May after 22.5 °C 6 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 May after 22.1 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 May after 22.7 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 May after 21.7 °C 10 % 76 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 May after 14.8 °C 12 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 May 2022
After · 16 May 2022

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 · 10Every 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 Left Fork fire last?
It burned between 9 May 2022 and 9 May 2022: 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 1,749 hectares (17.5 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Kane (1,762 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 11.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.