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Stikine Region fire, 1 August 2018 Stikine Region, Kitimat-Stikine D, Kitimat-Stikine F

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2018, 21:23 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2018 in Stikine Region, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 105,479 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 census subdivisions.

It is the 10th largest in British Columbia since 2016 (of 449 with a page). The largest in Canada in 2018, of 212.

Compare with…
Burnt area
105,479ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
25days
1 Aug 2018 – 25 Aug 2018
Census subdivisions hit
6
municipalities
Started on
1 Aug
2018
Heat detections
14,834
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
7.9GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug25 Aug
26 Aug 2018

How it evolved, day by day

1 Aug 2018 · 153 MW · 33 2 Aug 2018 · 962 MW · 52 3 Aug 2018 · 1,692 MW · 266 4 Aug 2018 · 2,731 MW · 132 5 Aug 2018 · 27,999 MW · 925 6 Aug 2018 · 4,491 MW · 657 7 Aug 2018 · 4 MW · 1 8 Aug 2018 · 12,238 MW · 245 9 Aug 2018 · 22 MW · 17 10 Aug 2018 · 1,008 MW · 326 11 Aug 2018 · 2,389 MW · 622 12 Aug 2018 · 1,114 MW · 500 13 Aug 2018 · 588 MW · 221 14 Aug 2018 · 14,796 MW · 474 15 Aug 2018 · 10,310 MW · 1510 16 Aug 2018 · 10,758 MW · 1347 18 Aug 2018 · 563 MW · 269 19 Aug 2018 · 2,532 MW · 524 20 Aug 2018 · 1,891 MW · 538 21 Aug 2018 · 66,667 MW · 1736 22 Aug 2018 · 32,482 MW · 4156 23 Aug 2018 · 797 MW · 80 24 Aug 2018 · 88 MW · 48 25 Aug 2018 · 108 MW · 20 26 Aug 2018 · 626 MW · 135
1 Aug 5 Aug 9 Aug 13 Aug 18 Aug 21 Aug 22 Aug 26 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
58km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.8 mm on 28 Aug.

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 67% of the area of London (1,055 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. Stikine Region where it started
    47,850 ha
    0.4 %
  2. Kitimat-Stikine D
    29,837 ha
    1.0 %
  3. Kitimat-Stikine F
    27,652 ha
    2.1 %
  4. Telegraph Creek
    146 ha
    100 %
  5. Tahltan 1
    94 ha
    63 %
  6. Guhthe Tah 12
    35 ha
    100 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.64 ha
Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.64 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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 Aug 27.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 19
2 Aug 21.9 °C 37 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Aug 18.9 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
4 Aug 22.0 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Aug 24.0 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Aug 21.3 °C 36 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Aug 18.8 °C 41 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Aug 19.7 °C 40 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Aug 16.5 °C 64 % 45 km/h 6.6 mm Very low 0
10 Aug 16.2 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 4
11 Aug 20.1 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
12 Aug 19.7 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Aug 19.5 °C 39 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
14 Aug 18.3 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
15 Aug 17.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Aug 18.1 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Aug 13.3 °C 55 % 39 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 1
18 Aug 17.4 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
19 Aug 20.6 °C 28 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
20 Aug 22.0 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
21 Aug 24.7 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Aug 15.7 °C 44 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Aug 15.2 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Aug 13.2 °C 59 % 32 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 2
25 Aug 13.8 °C 55 % 45 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
26 Aug after 17.5 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
27 Aug after 16.7 °C 59 % 51 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
28 Aug after 14.6 °C 76 % 41 km/h 8.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2018
After · 1 Sept 2018

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 · 0Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Stikine Region fire last?
It burned between 1 August 2018 and 25 August 2018: 25 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 105,479 hectares (1,054.8 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire entered 6 census subdivisions: Stikine Region (47,850 ha, 0.4 %); Kitimat-Stikine D (29,837 ha, 1.0 %); Kitimat-Stikine F (27,652 ha, 2.1 %); Telegraph Creek (146 ha, 100 %); Tahltan 1 (94 ha, 63 %); Guhthe Tah 12 (35 ha, 100 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 September 2018 → 25 August 2018.
  2. Start date: 31 July 2018 → 1 August 2018.

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.

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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: NBAC (Natural Resources Canada), official; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2020, 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.