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Meadow Fire, October 2016 Tulare

Out · last measured on 30 Oct 2016

The fire started on 30 October 2016 in Tulare, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,758 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 224th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 180 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area
1,758ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
30 Oct 2016 – 30 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
30 Oct
2016
Heat detections
347
in a single hotspot: 354 MW
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Oct30 Oct

The weather it burned in

19°high
59km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.2 mm on 21 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Tulare where it started
    1,752 ha reached on 10 Nov
    0.1 %

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)
30 Oct 12.0 °C 54 % 59 km/h 10.1 mm Very low 0
31 Oct after 11.4 °C 59 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
1 Nov after 9.2 °C 57 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
2 Nov after 15.2 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
3 Nov after 17.0 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
4 Nov after 17.4 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
5 Nov after 16.1 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
6 Nov after 13.4 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
7 Nov after 17.1 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
8 Nov after 18.6 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Nov after 18.1 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Nov after 18.3 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
11 Nov after 17.7 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Nov after 16.2 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
13 Nov after 17.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Nov after 18.2 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Nov after 17.0 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
16 Nov after 7.7 °C 47 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
17 Nov after 7.8 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
18 Nov after 12.6 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Nov after 14.7 °C 4 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Nov after 11.6 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
21 Nov after 5.0 °C 68 % 38 km/h 8.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Oct 2016
After · 6 Nov 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 · 347Every 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 Meadow fire last?
It burned between 30 October 2016 and 30 October 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 1,758 hectares (17.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Tulare (1,752 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 18.6 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.