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Starbuck Fire, July 2016 Columbia

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2016, 21:39 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2016 in Columbia, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 977 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 205th largest in Washington since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 270 in United States in 2016, of 475.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
977ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
18 Jul 2016 – 18 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
18 Jul
2016
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
223MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul18 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2016 · 223 MW · 23

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
48km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Columbia where it started
    975 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
18 Jul 27.1 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
19 Jul after 26.5 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Jul after 30.8 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul after 36.6 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Jul after 27.4 °C 18 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Jul after 28.2 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul after 32.6 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul after 36.3 °C 13 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jul after 35.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Jul after 35.5 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul after 37.4 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2016
After · 25 Jul 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 · 23Every 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 Starbuck fire last?
It burned between 18 July 2016 and 18 July 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 977 hectares (9.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Columbia (975 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.