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Mackenzie County fire, July 2019 Mackenzie County

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2019, 20:39 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2019 in Mackenzie County, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 9,148 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 67th largest in Alberta since 2016 (of 243 with a page). Number 25 in Canada in 2019, of 97.

Burnt area
9,148ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
16days
19 Jul 2019 – 3 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Jul
2019
Heat detections
546
in a single hotspot: 316 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
8.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul3 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425

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
55km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 5 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mackenzie County where it started
    9,229 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each census subdivision, 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)
19 Jul 21.3 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 Jul 23.3 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
21 Jul 26.0 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 15
22 Jul 26.1 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
23 Jul 26.3 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
24 Jul 23.6 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Jul 21.4 °C 49 % 42 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 4
26 Jul 19.4 °C 56 % 55 km/h 17.0 mm Very low 0
27 Jul 13.1 °C 65 % 33 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 0
28 Jul 16.5 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 1
29 Jul 17.2 °C 47 % 36 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 1
30 Jul 18.3 °C 38 % 40 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 2
31 Jul 18.3 °C 42 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
1 Aug 18.1 °C 58 % 29 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 2
2 Aug 21.2 °C 43 % 29 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 1
3 Aug 18.9 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
4 Aug after 22.0 °C 48 % 50 km/h 0.3 mm Low 8
5 Aug after 15.7 °C 61 % 40 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2019
After · 10 Aug 2019

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 · 546Every 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 Canada ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mackenzie County fire last?
It burned between 19 July 2019 and 3 August 2019: 16 days, according to the dates recorded by Canada’s CWFIS and the heat detections seen by satellite.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 9,148 hectares (91.5 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire only entered Mackenzie County (9,229 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the official burnt perimeter of Canada’s CWFIS (NBAC, Natural Resources Canada) or, for the current season and until NBAC publishes it, the one rebuilt by GWIS (Copernicus); from NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots; and from the administrative boundaries of Canada. 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: it comes from the National Burned Area Composite (NBAC) of the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS), Natural Resources Canada, which maps it on satellite imagery and publishes it under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Until NBAC publishes the current season, this year’s fires carry the perimeter rebuilt from heat detections by GWIS (Copernicus, CC BY 4.0), which is approximate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Census subdivision boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per census subdivision is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from official figures.