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Three Mile Fire, May 2017 Palm Beach, Broward, Hendry

Out · last detection 20 May 2017, 19:13 UTC

The fire started on 19 May 2017 in Palm Beach, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 10,791 hectares, spread across 3 counties.

It is the 6th largest in Florida since 2016 (of 148 with a page). Number 80 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Burnt area
10,791ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
19 May 2017 – 19 May 2017
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
19 May
2017
Heat detections
166
in a single hotspot: 113 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
248MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 May19 May

How it evolved, day by day

20

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
69km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 40.8 mm on 25 May.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Palm Beach where it started
    10,679 ha reached on 20 May
    1.8 %
  2. Broward
    111 ha reached on 20 May
    0.0 %
  3. Hendry
    12 ha
    0.0 %

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)
19 May 33.5 °C 42 % 45 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 14
20 May after 34.3 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
21 May after 32.6 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 18
22 May after 34.2 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
23 May after 36.4 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
24 May after 34.8 °C 41 % 69 km/h 9.7 mm Moderate 13
25 May after 28.0 °C 72 % 49 km/h 40.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 May 2017
After · 26 May 2017

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 · 166Every 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 Three Mile fire last?
It burned between 19 May 2017 and 19 May 2017: 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 10,791 hectares (107.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 3 counties: Palm Beach (10,679 ha, 1.8 %); Broward (111 ha, 0.0 %); Hendry (12 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.