Smith Fire, February 2026 Harding
The fire started on 17 February 2026 in Harding, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,537 hectares, spread across a single county.
It is the 90th largest in New Mexico since 2016 (of 204 with a page). Number 214 in United States in 2026, of 423.
- Burnt area
- 1,537ha
- official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
- Duration
- 1day
- 17 Feb 2026 – 17 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 17 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 25
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Danger at start
- 71
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 483MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
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
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 64 ha in 2022.
What happened to each town
-
Harding where it started1,273 ha reached on 17 Feb0.2 %
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 | 17.0 °C | 14 % | 93 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 18 Feb after | 14.5 °C | 12 % | 74 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 19 Feb after | 10.0 °C | 9 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Feb after | 10.5 °C | 14 % | 80 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 21 Feb after | 7.5 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Feb after | 10.8 °C | 9 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Feb after | 14.9 °C | 10 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Feb after | 25.4 °C | 6 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Feb after | 24.1 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Feb after | 21.8 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Feb after | 21.5 °C | 7 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 15 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 25Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Smith fire last?
- It burned between 17 February 2026 and 17 February 2026: 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 1,537 hectares (15.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
- Which counties burned?
- The fire only entered Harding (1,273 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 17.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 93 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very 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
- NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center ↗
- InciWeb · Incident Information System ↗
- MTBS · Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity ↗
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.
Report an error
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.