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Tarina Fire, August 2018 Kern

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2018, 10:09 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2018 in Kern, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,013 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 207th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 202 in United States in 2018, of 511.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.4 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
2,013ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
3 Aug 2018 – 3 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
3 Aug
2018
Heat detections
18
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
40MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug3 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

34

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
48km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Kern where it started
    2,007 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
28 Jul 38.1 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jul 38.2 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Jul 37.4 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
31 Jul 38.1 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Aug 38.2 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Aug 37.3 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Aug 37.3 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Aug after 35.4 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Aug after 34.6 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Aug after 33.8 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Aug after 36.1 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Aug after 37.7 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Aug after 38.4 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Aug after 36.4 °C 5 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Aug after 36.3 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Aug after 36.6 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Aug after 35.3 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug after 35.1 °C 24 % 36 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 · 27 Jul 2018
After · 10 Aug 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 · 18Every 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 Tarina fire last?
It burned between 3 August 2018 and 3 August 2018: 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 2,013 hectares (20.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Kern (2,007 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

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.