Skip to content
worldfires
en
CA · Canada · –

Northern Lights County fire, 28 May 2018 Northern Lights County, Clear Hills

Out · last detection 30 May 2018, 10:40 UTC

The fire started on 28 May 2018 in Northern Lights County, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 43 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,561 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 census subdivisions.

It is the 126th largest in Alberta since 2016 (of 176 with a page). Number 128 in Canada in 2018, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Northern Sunrise County · 2023Grande Prairie County No. 1 · 2024Northern Lights County · 2019

Burnt area
2,561ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
43days
28 May 2018 – 9 Jul 2018
Census subdivisions hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 May
2018
Heat detections
302
in a single hotspot: 349 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.8GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 May9 Jul
30 May 2018

How it evolved, day by day

28 May 2018 · 4,593 MW · 66 29 May 2018 · 713 MW · 235 30 May 2018 · 2 MW · 1
28 May 29 May 30 May

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
66km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 13 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (26 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. Northern Lights County where it started
    2,542 ha reached on 28 May
    0.1 %
  2. Clear Hills
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)

Started with Strong wind: 15 % of the area in Canada

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
28 May 18.4 °C 16 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 May 13.8 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm High 23
30 May 14.5 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 May 14.2 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
1 Jun 13.7 °C 53 % 40 km/h 1.7 mm Low 10
2 Jun 15.9 °C 32 % 41 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 13
3 Jun 18.6 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
4 Jun 11.7 °C 65 % 49 km/h 25.6 mm Very low 0
5 Jun 10.1 °C 48 % 22 km/h 1.2 mm Very low 0
6 Jun 16.3 °C 37 % 38 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 0
7 Jun 22.2 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 4
8 Jun 20.7 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Low 5
9 Jun 15.0 °C 63 % 33 km/h 10.7 mm Very low 0
10 Jun 15.2 °C 45 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
11 Jun 10.7 °C 48 % 66 km/h 18.1 mm Very low 1
12 Jun 8.2 °C 87 % 53 km/h 18.3 mm Very low 0
13 Jun 9.1 °C 60 % 39 km/h 6.2 mm Very low 0
14 Jun 14.0 °C 56 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
15 Jun 17.9 °C 40 % 26 km/h 1.2 mm Very low 0
16 Jun 24.0 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
17 Jun 24.2 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
18 Jun 29.0 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
19 Jun 30.4 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 Jun 31.4 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
21 Jun 27.5 °C 38 % 27 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 15
22 Jun 22.2 °C 56 % 24 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 1
23 Jun 25.5 °C 33 % 30 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 2
24 Jun 25.0 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
25 Jun 20.8 °C 63 % 49 km/h 7.1 mm Very low 3
26 Jun 12.4 °C 65 % 48 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 1
27 Jun 15.2 °C 57 % 53 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 0
28 Jun 17.7 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
29 Jun 15.7 °C 67 % 29 km/h 10.2 mm Very low 1
30 Jun 16.2 °C 69 % 35 km/h 8.0 mm Very low 0
1 Jul 13.4 °C 77 % 34 km/h 6.7 mm Very low 0
2 Jul 15.1 °C 66 % 50 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 0
3 Jul 18.8 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 0
4 Jul 21.2 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
5 Jul 23.9 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
6 Jul 23.3 °C 35 % 60 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
7 Jul 13.5 °C 49 % 42 km/h 7.4 mm Very low 0
8 Jul 21.7 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
9 Jul 24.9 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
10 Jul after 25.9 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm Low 8
11 Jul after 23.5 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
12 Jul after 19.6 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm Low 9
13 Jul after 13.1 °C 62 % 45 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 47.1, a minimum humidity of 16% and 3 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 8.

FWI at the start 47.1
Minimum humidity 16 %
Days without rain 3
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Northern Sunrise County fire, May 2023
5,158 ha 3 days FWI 42.6 Min. humidity 14 % 97 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 8. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.7 mmfirst rain
13 Jul4 days after it ended
66km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 9 Jul, and on 13 Jul 2.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 May 2018
After · 16 Jul 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 · 302Every 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 Northern Lights County fire last?
It burned between 28 May 2018 and 9 July 2018: 43 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 2,561 hectares (25.6 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire entered 2 census subdivisions: Northern Lights County (2,542 ha, 0.1 %); Clear Hills (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
What do you think is wrong?

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 302 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 2020, 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.