How long did the Siphon fire last?

It burned between 10 September 2024 and 10 September 2024: 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 6,071 hectares (60.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire entered 2 counties: Maricopa (3,145 ha, 0.1 %); Pinal (2,970 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, class 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.

US · United States · 2024-09-10 → 2024-09-10

Siphon Fire, September 2024 Maricopa, Pinal

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2024, 21:15 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2024 in Maricopa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 6,071 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 56th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 74 in United States in 2024, of 371.

Burnt area: 6,071ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 10 Sept 2024 – 10 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 10 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 147; in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start: 53; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 407MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

50km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 21 Sept.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,501 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

Maricopa where it started

3,145 ha reached on 12 Sept

0.1 %
Pinal

2,970 ha reached on 11 Sept

0.2 %

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)
10 Sept	38.8 °C	8 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
11 Sept after	37.6 °C	11 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
12 Sept after	37.2 °C	7 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
13 Sept after	35.9 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
14 Sept after	34.3 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
15 Sept after	34.8 °C	24 %	44 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 44
16 Sept after	32.4 °C	32 %	51 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 46
17 Sept after	30.2 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
18 Sept after	30.7 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Sept after	31.8 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
20 Sept after	30.7 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
21 Sept after	27.7 °C	23 %	30 km/h	1.0 mm	High 28

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Sept 2024

After · 17 Sept 2024

Before After

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 13 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1071 µg/m³

Optical depth0.21

WHO 15

8910111213141516

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 · 147Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Siphon fire last?: It burned between 10 September 2024 and 10 September 2024: 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 6,071 hectares (60.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire entered 2 counties: Maricopa (3,145 ha, 0.1 %); Pinal (2,970 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, class 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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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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.

Where it burned