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Senneterre fire, 1 June 2023 Senneterre, Dépôt-Échouani

Out · last detection 26 Jun 2023, 08:18 UTC

The fire started on 1 June 2023 in Senneterre, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 6,833 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 census subdivisions.

It is the 88th largest in Quebec since 2016 (of 254 with a page). Number 220 in Canada in 2023, of 489.

Compare with…

Suggestions: La Tuque · 2023

Burnt area
6,833ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
40days
1 Jun 2023 – 10 Jul 2023
Census subdivisions hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Jun
2023
Heat detections
477
in a single hotspot: 135 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
401MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jun10 Jul
26 Jun 2023

How it evolved, day by day

2 Jun 2023 · 1,681 MW · 28 3 Jun 2023 · 1,686 MW · 181 4 Jun 2023 · 891 MW · 45 5 Jun 2023 · 88 MW · 7 6 Jun 2023 · 640 MW · 43 7 Jun 2023 · 56 MW · 19 8 Jun 2023 · 3 MW · 1 12 Jun 2023 · 213 MW · 9 13 Jun 2023 · 5 MW · 3 21 Jun 2023 · 25 MW · 3 22 Jun 2023 · 44 MW · 5 23 Jun 2023 · 225 MW · 35 24 Jun 2023 · 51 MW · 34 25 Jun 2023 · 366 MW · 26 26 Jun 2023 · 43 MW · 38
2 Jun 3 Jun 5 Jun 8 Jun 21 Jun 24 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
56km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 11 Jul.

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 4.3% of the area of London (68 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. Senneterre where it started
    6,725 ha reached on 2 Jun
    0.4 %
  2. Dépôt-Échouani
    86 ha reached on 25 Jun
    0.2 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
1 Jun 31.9 °C 27 % 27 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 13
2 Jun 26.4 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
3 Jun 20.9 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Jun 21.4 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Jun 21.7 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 18
6 Jun 17.5 °C 34 % 56 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
7 Jun 13.8 °C 48 % 55 km/h 1.3 mm Low 8
8 Jun 16.9 °C 54 % 41 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 2
9 Jun 16.9 °C 50 % 25 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 2
10 Jun 18.5 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
11 Jun 21.6 °C 50 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm Low 7
12 Jun 25.3 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
13 Jun 21.5 °C 60 % 41 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 3
14 Jun 22.0 °C 42 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
15 Jun 22.5 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
16 Jun 17.9 °C 59 % 42 km/h 0.6 mm Low 9
17 Jun 19.6 °C 56 % 34 km/h 1.0 mm Low 6
18 Jun 20.3 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
19 Jun 22.8 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 Jun 27.0 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
21 Jun 28.9 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
22 Jun 29.3 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
23 Jun 29.2 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jun 26.2 °C 47 % 35 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 13
25 Jun 23.6 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
26 Jun 21.9 °C 65 % 46 km/h 11.0 mm Very low 1
27 Jun 21.2 °C 73 % 34 km/h 18.8 mm Very low 0
28 Jun 20.2 °C 63 % 46 km/h 17.9 mm Very low 0
29 Jun 26.1 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
30 Jun 24.9 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm Low 6
1 Jul 24.9 °C 56 % 40 km/h 8.6 mm Very low 0
2 Jul 26.6 °C 52 % 22 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 0
3 Jul 28.0 °C 44 % 16 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 2
4 Jul 29.5 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
5 Jul 31.7 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
6 Jul 28.2 °C 56 % 44 km/h 25.5 mm Very low 0
7 Jul 24.8 °C 54 % 33 km/h 16.4 mm Very low 0
8 Jul 25.7 °C 43 % 19 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 0
9 Jul 23.4 °C 57 % 29 km/h 2.0 mm Very low 1
10 Jul 27.1 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
11 Jul after 25.9 °C 57 % 42 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 May 2023
After · 17 Jul 2023

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

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 466 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 263: 18 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak466 µg/m³
Days over the guideline25 days
PM10665 µg/m³
Optical depth3.85
303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293012345678910111213
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 477Every 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 Canada ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Senneterre fire last?
It burned between 1 June 2023 and 10 July 2023: 40 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 6,833 hectares (68.3 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire entered 2 census subdivisions: Senneterre (6,725 ha, 0.4 %); Dépôt-Échouani (86 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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

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. 477 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 2025, 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.