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Mackenzie County fire, 8 June 2023 Mackenzie County

Out · last detection 17 Jul 2023, 10:04 UTC

The fire started on 8 June 2023 in Mackenzie County, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 5,145 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 98th largest in Alberta since 2016 (of 243 with a page). Number 264 in Canada in 2023, of 489.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mackenzie County · 2022Mackenzie County · 2024Mackenzie County · 2018Mackenzie County · 2024

Burnt area
5,145ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
40days
8 Jun 2023 – 17 Jul 2023
Census subdivisions hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Jun
2023
Heat detections
539
in a single hotspot: 268 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
361MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jun17 Jul
17 Jul 2023

How it evolved, day by day

8 Jun 2023 · 17 MW · 2 9 Jun 2023 · 10 MW · 6 11 Jun 2023 · 4,005 MW · 60 12 Jun 2023 · 537 MW · 110 13 Jun 2023 · 734 MW · 79 15 Jun 2023 · 43 MW · 4 20 Jun 2023 · 8 MW · 1 21 Jun 2023 · 19 MW · 2 22 Jun 2023 · 194 MW · 12 23 Jun 2023 · 37 MW · 18 1 Jul 2023 · 1 MW · 1 5 Jul 2023 · 1 MW · 1 6 Jul 2023 · 14 MW · 9 7 Jul 2023 · 2 MW · 2 8 Jul 2023 · 7 MW · 2 9 Jul 2023 · 1,330 MW · 83 11 Jul 2023 · 1 MW · 1 13 Jul 2023 · 7 MW · 4 14 Jul 2023 · 4 MW · 3 15 Jul 2023 · 272 MW · 23 16 Jul 2023 · 661 MW · 99 17 Jul 2023 · 30 MW · 17
8 Jun 11 Jun 13 Jun 22 Jun 6 Jul 11 Jul 16 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
62km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.0 mm on 17 Jul.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each census subdivision

  1. Mackenzie County where it started
    5,234 ha reached on 8 Jun
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each census subdivision, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Jun 25.0 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Jun 22.5 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
11 Jun 19.7 °C 25 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jun 15.4 °C 52 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
13 Jun 21.2 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Jun 16.1 °C 46 % 39 km/h 2.5 mm Low 6
15 Jun 19.8 °C 35 % 30 km/h 1.8 mm Low 6
16 Jun 13.2 °C 65 % 38 km/h 4.1 mm Very low 1
17 Jun 14.2 °C 58 % 29 km/h 4.8 mm Very low 0
18 Jun 17.1 °C 47 % 42 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 1
19 Jun 17.9 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
20 Jun 20.2 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
21 Jun 21.9 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 13
22 Jun 23.7 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
23 Jun 25.0 °C 39 % 27 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 3
24 Jun 18.0 °C 58 % 43 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 3
25 Jun 19.6 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6
26 Jun 25.8 °C 27 % 30 km/h 1.7 mm Low 8
27 Jun 27.9 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
28 Jun 28.5 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
29 Jun 23.1 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
30 Jun 19.1 °C 48 % 46 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 4
1 Jul 20.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
2 Jul 20.1 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
3 Jul 20.1 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
4 Jul 25.0 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Jul 27.6 °C 29 % 35 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Jul 23.3 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Jul 25.3 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Jul 29.7 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Jul 26.1 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
10 Jul 19.4 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
11 Jul 23.3 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
12 Jul 26.7 °C 39 % 23 km/h 2.4 mm Low 7
13 Jul 26.8 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
14 Jul 26.0 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Jul 23.9 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Jul 24.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
17 Jul 20.1 °C 66 % 40 km/h 8.0 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jun 2023
After · 24 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 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 628 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 230: 15 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak628 µg/m³
Days over the guideline32 days
PM10896 µg/m³
Optical depth3.88
78910111213141516171819202122232425262728293012345678910111213141516171819
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)

Detections table · 539Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 June 2023 to 17 July 2023 (40 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 June 2023 to 16 July 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 5,145 hectares (51.4 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire only entered Mackenzie County (5,234 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 16 July 2023 → 17 July 2023.
  2. Start date: 9 June 2023 → 8 June 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: NBAC (Natural Resources Canada), official.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 9 June 2023 to 16 July 2023. 539 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.