How long did the Midnight fire last?

It burned between 19 June 2024 and 19 June 2024: 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 27,863 hectares (278.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Yukon-Koyukuk (21,293 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 25.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.

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.

US · United States · 2024-06-19 → 2024-06-19

Midnight Fire, June 2024 Yukon-Koyukuk

Out · last detection 20 Jun 2024, 22:21 UTC

The fire started on 19 June 2024 in Yukon-Koyukuk, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 27,863 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 32th largest in Alaska since 2016 (of 472 with a page). Number 18 in United States in 2024, of 371.

Burnt area: 27,863ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 19 Jun 2024 – 19 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 19 Jun; 2024
Heat detections: 361; in a single hotspot: 146 MW
Danger at start: 12; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 371MW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Jun 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jun19 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1920

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

The weather it burned in

25°high

44km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 1 Jul.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 514 ha in 2022.

514 ha Grayling fire, July 2022 520 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Yukon-Koyukuk where it started

21,293 ha reached on 19 Jun

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)
19 Jun	22.0 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 12
20 Jun after	20.2 °C	50 %	38 km/h	6.5 mm	Very low 1
21 Jun after	18.5 °C	43 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
22 Jun after	19.1 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
23 Jun after	20.8 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
24 Jun after	24.0 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
25 Jun after	22.2 °C	41 %	20 km/h	0.6 mm	Low 10
26 Jun after	25.3 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 16
27 Jun after	26.7 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
28 Jun after	25.6 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 20
29 Jun after	24.6 °C	35 %	20 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 18
30 Jun after	25.1 °C	35 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
1 Jul after	23.8 °C	40 %	45 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Jun 2024

After · 26 Jun 2024

Before After

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 19 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1026 µg/m³

Optical depth0.43

WHO 15

171819202122

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 · 361Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Midnight fire last?: It burned between 19 June 2024 and 19 June 2024: 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 27,863 hectares (278.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Yukon-Koyukuk (21,293 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 25.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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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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.

Where it burned