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Ryan Fire, September 2018 Carbon, Jackson

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2018, 19:43 UTC

The fire started on 15 September 2018 in Carbon, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 11,676 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 10th largest in Wyoming since 2016 (of 117 with a page). Number 60 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
11,676ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
15 Sept 2018 – 15 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
15 Sept
2018
Heat detections
1,088
in a single hotspot: 831 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

16

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
74km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.2 mm on 4 Oct.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 509 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Carbon where it started
    10,215 ha reached on 17 Sept
    0.5 %
  2. Jackson
    1,369 ha reached on 16 Sept
    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)
15 Sept 25.9 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept after 24.5 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept after 22.1 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Sept after 23.6 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Sept after 18.6 °C 24 % 55 km/h 0.5 mm High 38
20 Sept after 16.4 °C 12 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 20.3 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Sept after 21.2 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Sept after 19.2 °C 21 % 60 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 44
24 Sept after 14.2 °C 20 % 74 km/h 3.6 mm Low 9
25 Sept after 12.7 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Sept after 15.6 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Sept after 16.6 °C 20 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Sept after 16.3 °C 22 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Sept after 18.8 °C 16 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Sept after 17.0 °C 22 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Oct after 16.1 °C 32 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Oct after 16.8 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
3 Oct after 14.9 °C 62 % 62 km/h 2.4 mm Low 6
4 Oct after 9.0 °C 72 % 62 km/h 9.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Sept 2018
After · 22 Sept 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 · 1,088Every 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 Ryan fire last?
It burned between 15 September 2018 and 15 September 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 11,676 hectares (116.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Carbon (10,215 ha, 0.5 %); Jackson (1,369 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 74 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.