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Prior Fire, July 2023 Catron

Out · last measured on 26 Jul 2023

The fire started on 26 July 2023 in Catron, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 5,165 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 32th largest in New Mexico since 2016 (of 204 with a page). Number 31 in United States in 2023, of 305.

Burnt area
5,165ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
26 Jul 2023 – 26 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
26 Jul
2023
Heat detections
54
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul26 Jul

The weather it burned in

34°high
42km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 9 Aug.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 88 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Catron where it started
    5,141 ha reached on 30 Jul
    0.3 %

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)
26 Jul 32.6 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.9 mm High 30
27 Jul after 32.1 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul after 32.3 °C 20 % 31 km/h 1.4 mm High 23
29 Jul after 29.6 °C 25 % 31 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 13
30 Jul after 28.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm High 29
31 Jul after 27.1 °C 29 % 36 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 16
1 Aug after 27.7 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Aug after 29.0 °C 25 % 33 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 20
3 Aug after 29.4 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
4 Aug after 32.5 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
5 Aug after 34.5 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug after 34.4 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Aug after 30.8 °C 21 % 40 km/h 3.5 mm Moderate 14
8 Aug after 26.6 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
9 Aug after 27.8 °C 28 % 42 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jul 2023
After · 2 Aug 2023

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 28 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1047 µg/m³
Optical depth0.52
242526272829
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 · 54Every 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 Prior fire last?
It burned between 26 July 2023 and 26 July 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 5,165 hectares (51.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Catron (5,141 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.