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Lions Fire, June 2018 Madera

Out · last measured on 11 Jun 2018

The fire started on 11 June 2018 in Madera, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 5,767 hectares, spread across a single county. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 2 June 2018 and declared extinguished on 8 June 2018.

It is the 118th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 99 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
5,767ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
11 Jun 2018 – 11 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
11 Jun
2018
Heat detections
746
in a single hotspot: 909 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jun11 Jun

The weather it burned in

24°high
59km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 12 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. Madera where it started
    5,782 ha reached on 21 Jun
    1.0 %

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.

Official record

According to CONAFOR, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,638 ha (the satellite measured 5,767 ha).

CONAFOR (Comisión Nacional Forestal), estadística de incendios forestales en datos.gob.mx (CC BY 4.0). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.

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)
11 Jun 19.9 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Jun after 20.8 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
13 Jun after 20.7 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Jun after 19.6 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
15 Jun after 16.6 °C 20 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
16 Jun after 15.3 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Jun after 9.2 °C 39 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Jun after 15.8 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
19 Jun after 20.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
20 Jun after 22.4 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Jun after 21.8 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Jun after 23.3 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Jun after 23.5 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jun after 23.8 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
25 Jun after 22.7 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Jun after 23.8 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jun after 21.9 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jun after 18.0 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jun after 20.2 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jun after 23.4 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Jul after 22.1 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
2 Jul after 21.7 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
3 Jul after 20.5 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Jul after 19.0 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Jul after 20.4 °C 12 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Jul after 24.1 °C 17 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Jul after 23.1 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Jul after 23.7 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
9 Jul after 23.8 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Jul after 24.4 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Jul after 23.7 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jul after 22.2 °C 33 % 30 km/h 2.1 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jun 2018
After · 18 Jun 2018

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 · 746Every 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 Lions fire last?
It burned between 11 June 2018 and 11 June 2018: 1 day, according to the start date recorded by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) and the heat detections seen by satellite. According to CONAFOR, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 2 June 2018 and declared extinguished on 8 June 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 5,767 hectares (57.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Madera (5,782 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.