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Point Fire, September 2024 Maricopa

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2024, 21:16 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2024 in Maricopa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,919 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 136th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 152 in United States in 2024, of 371.

Burnt area
1,919ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
10 Sept 2024 – 10 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
10 Sept
2024
Heat detections
81
in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1011

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
50km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 950 ha in 2018, 1,087 ha in 2019, 866 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,633 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maricopa where it started
    1,938 ha reached on 10 Sept
    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)
10 Sept 35.6 °C 9 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Sept after 34.3 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Sept after 33.8 °C 8 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Sept after 32.4 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Sept after 31.9 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept after 31.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Sept after 30.7 °C 20 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
17 Sept after 26.3 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Sept after 27.0 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Sept after 28.2 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Sept after 27.0 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 45
21 Sept after 25.8 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
22 Sept after 31.0 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Sept after 32.9 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2024
After · 17 Sept 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 13 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1049 µg/m³
Optical depth0.25
8910111213141516
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 · 81Every 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 Point fire last?
It burned between 10 September 2024 and 10 September 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 1,919 hectares (19.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Maricopa (1,938 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, class 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

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.