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Red Mud Fire, April 2022 Dickens, Crosby

Out · last detection 1 Apr 2022, 20:37 UTC

The fire started on 1 April 2022 in Dickens, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 830 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 204th largest in Texas since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 346 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Burnt area
830ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
1 Apr 2022 – 1 Apr 2022
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
1 Apr
2022
Heat detections
34
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Apr1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
60km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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. Dickens where it started
    630 ha reached on 1 Apr
    0.3 %
  2. 197 ha reached on 1 Apr
    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)
1 Apr 26.6 °C 18 % 60 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
2 Apr after 24.1 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Apr after 31.3 °C 8 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 52
4 Apr after 21.3 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
5 Apr after 34.1 °C 5 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
6 Apr after 20.7 °C 9 % 77 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
7 Apr after 19.8 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Apr after 21.7 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Apr after 30.8 °C 7 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
10 Apr after 31.2 °C 8 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
11 Apr after 27.0 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Mar 2022
After · 8 Apr 2022

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

Detections table · 34Every 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 Red Mud fire last?
It burned between 1 April 2022 and 1 April 2022: 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 830 hectares (8.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Dickens (630 ha, 0.3 %); Crosby (197 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.