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Rhea Fire, April 2018 Dewey, Woodward, Custer

Out · last detection 13 Apr 2018, 20:06 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2018 in Dewey, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 112,391 hectares, spread across 3 counties.

It is the 2th largest in Oklahoma since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 3 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
112,391ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
12 Apr 2018 – 12 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
12 Apr
2018
Heat detections
2,065
in a single hotspot: 504 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
42.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr12 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1213

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
91km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.8 mm on 20 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Dewey where it started
    106,603 ha reached on 12 Apr
    41 %
  2. Woodward
    3,944 ha reached on 12 Apr
    1.2 %
  3. Custer
    2,182 ha reached on 14 Apr
    0.8 %

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)
12 Apr 36.1 °C 6 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Apr after 26.0 °C 6 % 80 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
14 Apr after 9.9 °C 26 % 91 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Apr after 15.8 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Apr after 24.9 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Apr after 34.2 °C 7 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Apr after 20.3 °C 13 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Apr after 18.6 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Apr after 19.7 °C 27 % 60 km/h 4.8 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2018
After · 19 Apr 2018

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 · 2,065Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Rhea fire last?
It burned between 12 April 2018 and 12 April 2018: 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 112,391 hectares (1,123.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 3 counties: Dewey (106,603 ha, 41 %); Woodward (3,944 ha, 1.2 %); Custer (2,182 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 91 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very 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.