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Prison Fire, February 2017 Swisher

Out · last measured on 28 Feb 2017

The fire started on 28 February 2017 in Swisher, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 980 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 176th largest in Texas since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 394 in United States in 2017, of 619.

We have the official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC) for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by county is there.

Burnt area
980ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
28 Feb 2017 – 28 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Feb
2017
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

22°high
88km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Swisher where it started
    981 ha
    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)
28 Feb 22.1 °C 12 % 88 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Mar after 11.9 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Mar after 15.9 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Mar after 17.6 °C 12 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Mar after 20.6 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Mar after 24.9 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Mar after 25.5 °C 9 % 69 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Mar after 16.1 °C 9 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Mar after 24.6 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Mar after 28.6 °C 6 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Mar after 13.3 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Feb 2017
After · 7 Mar 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Prison fire last?
It burned between 28 February 2017 and 28 February 2017: 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 980 hectares (9.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Swisher (981 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 88 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.

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.

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.