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Rivière-Koksoak fire, June 2016 Rivière-Koksoak

Out · last measured on 19 Jun 2016

The fire started on 18 June 2016 in Rivière-Koksoak, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,012 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 114th largest in Quebec since 2016 (of 170 with a page). Number 59 in Canada in 2016, of 88.

Compare with…

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We have the official CWFIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by census subdivision is there.

Burnt area
2,012ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
2days
18 Jun 2016 – 19 Jun 2016
Census subdivisions hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jun
2016
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

25°high
74km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 20 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (20 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each census subdivision

  1. Rivière-Koksoak where it started
    1,819 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each census subdivision, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with Strong wind: 15 % of the area in Canada

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
18 Jun 22.8 °C 25 % 53 km/h 1.9 mm Low 10
19 Jun 24.8 °C 35 % 74 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
20 Jun after 17.6 °C 61 % 52 km/h 4.9 mm Very low 2

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 10.0, a minimum humidity of 25% and 7 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 5.

FWI at the start 10.0
Minimum humidity 25 %
Days without rain 7
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Rivière-Koksoak fire, June 2022
13,521 ha 12 days FWI 13.2 Min. humidity 25 % 135 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 16.7 mm on 17 Jun.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 5. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

4.9 mmfirst rain
20 Junthe day after it ended
74km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Jun, and on 20 Jun 4.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jun 2016
After · 26 Jun 2016

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 Canada

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Rivière-Koksoak fire last?
It burned between 18 June 2016 and 19 June 2016: 2 days, according to the dates recorded by Canada’s CWFIS and the heat detections seen by satellite.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 2,012 hectares (20.1 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire only entered Rivière-Koksoak (1,819 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.8 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 74 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the official burnt perimeter of Canada’s CWFIS (NBAC, Natural Resources Canada) or, for the current season and until NBAC publishes it, the one rebuilt by GWIS (Copernicus); from NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots; and from the administrative boundaries of Canada. 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: NBAC (Natural Resources Canada), official.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

Where this data comes from

The perimeter is official: it comes from the National Burned Area Composite (NBAC) of the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS), Natural Resources Canada, which maps it on satellite imagery and publishes it under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Until NBAC publishes the current season, this year’s fires carry the perimeter rebuilt from heat detections by GWIS (Copernicus, CC BY 4.0), which is approximate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Census subdivision boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per census subdivision is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from official figures.