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Motley fire, January 2018 Motley

Out · last detection 26 Jan 2018, 09:30 UTC

The fire started on 25 January 2018 in Motley, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,424 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 79th largest in Texas since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 172 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
2,424ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
25 Jan 2018 – 25 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
25 Jan
2018
Heat detections
49
in a single hotspot: 220 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
775MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jan25 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2526

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

The weather it burned in

22°high
59km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Motley where it started
    2,430 ha reached on 25 Jan
    1.0 %

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)
25 Jan 17.8 °C 7 % 59 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
26 Jan after 19.0 °C 40 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jan after 14.2 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jan after 16.8 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
29 Jan after 11.5 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jan after 21.5 °C 15 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jan after 26.5 °C 9 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Feb after 11.5 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Feb after 9.7 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Feb after 21.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Feb after 13.2 °C 37 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Feb after 16.8 °C 24 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Feb after 4.1 °C 51 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
7 Feb after 7.7 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
8 Feb after 17.9 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Feb after 21.8 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jan 2018
After · 1 Feb 2018

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 · 49Every 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 Motley fire last?
It burned between 25 January 2018 and 25 January 2018: 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 2,424 hectares (24.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Motley (2,430 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 21.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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.