How long did the Oak fire last?

It burned between 16 June 2023 and 16 June 2023: 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 1,284 hectares (12.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Pima (1,285 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 84, class Very extreme.

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 · 2023-06-16 → 2023-06-16

Oak Fire, June 2023 Pima

Out · last detection 16 Jun 2023, 21:10 UTC

The fire started on 16 June 2023 in Pima, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,284 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 180th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 125 in United States in 2023, of 305.

Burnt area: 1,284ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 16 Jun 2023 – 16 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 16 Jun; 2023
Heat detections: 24; in a single hotspot: 124 MW
Danger at start: 84; Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 951MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jun16 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

73km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,140 ha in 2017.

1,140 ha Sawmill fire, April 2017 19,149 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Pima where it started

1,285 ha reached on 16 Jun

0.0 %

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)
16 Jun	32.2 °C	8 %	73 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 84
17 Jun after	32.8 °C	9 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 68
18 Jun after	33.2 °C	9 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 71
19 Jun after	32.7 °C	13 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 70
20 Jun after	33.5 °C	10 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
21 Jun after	33.5 °C	9 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
22 Jun after	34.1 °C	8 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 70
23 Jun after	34.2 °C	6 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 68
24 Jun after	35.4 °C	6 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
25 Jun after	37.0 °C	7 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 70
26 Jun after	37.7 °C	10 %	46 km/h	0.5 mm	Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Jun 2023

After · 23 Jun 2023

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 17 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1017 µg/m³

Optical depth0.36

141516171819

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 · 24Every 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 Oak fire last?: It burned between 16 June 2023 and 16 June 2023: 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 1,284 hectares (12.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Pima (1,285 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 84, class Very extreme.
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