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Sebastian fire, February 2016 Sebastian, Franklin

Out · last measured on 22 Feb 2016

The fire started on 22 February 2016 in Sebastian, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 4,825 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the largest fire in Arkansas since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 74 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area
4,825ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
22 Feb 2016 – 22 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
22 Feb
2016
Heat detections
111
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Feb22 Feb

The weather it burned in

26°high
58km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 21.4 mm on 1 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Sebastian where it started
    2,893 ha reached on 17 Feb
    2.0 %
  2. Franklin
    1,945 ha reached on 17 Feb
    1.2 %

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)
17 Feb 19.5 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
18 Feb 25.7 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Feb 23.6 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
20 Feb 23.5 °C 55 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
21 Feb 24.3 °C 38 % 30 km/h 1.0 mm Low 9
22 Feb 16.6 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
23 Feb after 10.5 °C 53 % 50 km/h 30.0 mm Very low 0
24 Feb after 10.1 °C 38 % 58 km/h 5.8 mm Very low 0
25 Feb after 10.0 °C 33 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
26 Feb after 13.3 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
27 Feb after 22.2 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
28 Feb after 19.5 °C 50 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
29 Feb after 23.3 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
1 Mar after 16.0 °C 31 % 52 km/h 21.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Feb 2016
After · 29 Feb 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.

Detections table · 111Every 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 Sebastian fire last?
It burned between 22 February 2016 and 22 February 2016: 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 4,825 hectares (48.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Sebastian (2,893 ha, 2.0 %); Franklin (1,945 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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.