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Peter Switch Fire, August 2024 Wichita

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2024, 20:25 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2024 in Wichita, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 668 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 237th largest in Texas since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 265 in United States in 2024, of 371.

Burnt area
668ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
18 Aug 2024 – 18 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
18 Aug
2024
Heat detections
29
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
976MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

18

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
27km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 24 Aug.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 521 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Wichita where it started
    671 ha reached on 18 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
18 Aug 41.5 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Aug after 42.3 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Aug after 40.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
21 Aug after 39.9 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
22 Aug after 39.5 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
23 Aug after 43.0 °C 19 % 58 km/h 0.9 mm Extreme 65
24 Aug after 39.4 °C 30 % 42 km/h 1.1 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2024
After · 25 Aug 2024

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 21 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
Optical depth0.14
161718192021
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 · 29Every 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 Peter Switch fire last?
It burned between 18 August 2024 and 18 August 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 668 hectares (6.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Wichita (671 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

Report an error
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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.