Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States · →

Maalaea Fire, July 2016 Maui

Out · last detection 3 Jul 2016, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2016 in Maui, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,442 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 5th largest in Hawaii since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 139 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area
2,442ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
2 Jul 2016 – 2 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
2 Jul
2016
Heat detections
51
in a single hotspot: 248 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul2 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

23

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
62km/h · peak gust
44%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 14 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. Maui where it started
    2,260 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.7 %

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)
2 Jul 24.8 °C 52 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Jul after 24.8 °C 58 % 43 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
4 Jul after 25.0 °C 55 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
5 Jul after 24.7 °C 56 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
6 Jul after 25.2 °C 52 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
7 Jul after 25.6 °C 49 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Jul after 24.9 °C 47 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Jul after 25.7 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Jul after 25.2 °C 51 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
11 Jul after 25.5 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Jul after 25.9 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Jul after 25.6 °C 56 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
14 Jul after 25.0 °C 60 % 35 km/h 2.5 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2016
After · 9 Jul 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 · 51Every 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 Maalaea fire last?
It burned between 2 July 2016 and 2 July 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 2,442 hectares (24.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Maui (2,260 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.7 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.

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.