How long did the Strathcona C fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 August 2018 to 24 August 2018 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2018 to 23 August 2018.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 2,805 hectares (28.0 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.

Which census subdivisions burned?

The fire only entered Strathcona C (2,816 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.

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.

CA · Canada · 2018-08-01 → 2018-08-24

Strathcona C fire, 1 August 2018 Strathcona C

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2018, 10:30 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2018 in Strathcona C, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,805 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 251th largest in British Columbia since 2016 (of 448 with a page). Number 120 in Canada in 2018, of 212.

Compare with…

Burnt area: 2,805ha; official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration: 24days; 1 Aug 2018 – 24 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 1 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 783; in a single hotspot: 223 MW
Danger at start: 2; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 489MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug24 Aug

Play back 24 Aug 2018

How it evolved, day by day

4 Aug 7 Aug 8 Aug 10 Aug 14 Aug 17 Aug 20 Aug 23 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

56km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 25 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (28 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 town

Strathcona C where it started

2,816 ha reached on 4 Aug

0.3 %

Burnt area inside each census subdivision, 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)
1 Aug	20.3 °C	70 %	38 km/h	1.9 mm	Very low 2
2 Aug	17.4 °C	73 %	38 km/h	3.0 mm	Very low 0
3 Aug	18.5 °C	66 %	41 km/h	1.2 mm	Very low 1
4 Aug	20.8 °C	46 %	21 km/h	0.3 mm	Very low 2
5 Aug	23.9 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
6 Aug	24.9 °C	38 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
7 Aug	26.8 °C	38 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
8 Aug	27.8 °C	35 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
9 Aug	27.4 °C	34 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
10 Aug	28.0 °C	22 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
11 Aug	21.0 °C	44 %	34 km/h	15.6 mm	Very low 0
12 Aug	21.1 °C	45 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
13 Aug	23.4 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 5
14 Aug	24.3 °C	49 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
15 Aug	23.7 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
16 Aug	23.2 °C	46 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
17 Aug	22.6 °C	42 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
18 Aug	23.1 °C	35 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
19 Aug	22.5 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
20 Aug	25.6 °C	28 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
21 Aug	27.1 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
22 Aug	22.9 °C	33 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
23 Aug	17.7 °C	52 %	45 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 13
24 Aug	18.8 °C	43 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
25 Aug after	14.9 °C	67 %	27 km/h	4.6 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 · 31 Aug 2018

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.

Detections table · 783Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Strathcona C fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 August 2018 to 24 August 2018 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2018 to 23 August 2018.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 2,805 hectares (28.0 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?: The fire only entered Strathcona C (2,816 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
CWFIS · Interactive map ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 August 2018 to 23 August 2018. 783 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.

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.

Where it burned