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Timiskaming, Unorganized, Wes* fire, July 2018 Timiskaming, Unorganized, Wes*

Out · last detection 23 Jul 2018, 07:08 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2018 in Timiskaming, Unorganized, Wes*, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 22,754 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single census subdivision.

It is the 18th largest in Ontario since 2016 (of 144 with a page). Number 17 in Canada in 2018, of 212.

Burnt area
22,754ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
16days
8 Jul 2018 – 23 Jul 2018
Census subdivisions hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Jul
2018
Heat detections
1,354
in a single hotspot: 290 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul23 Jul
23 Jul 2018

How it evolved, day by day

9 Jul 2018 · 3,134 MW · 321 10 Jul 2018 · 70 MW · 51 11 Jul 2018 · 4,644 MW · 159 12 Jul 2018 · 964 MW · 299 14 Jul 2018 · 4 MW · 5 15 Jul 2018 · 11 MW · 3 16 Jul 2018 · 29 MW · 14 17 Jul 2018 · 11 MW · 10 18 Jul 2018 · 22 MW · 6 19 Jul 2018 · 2,163 MW · 86 20 Jul 2018 · 8,597 MW · 171 21 Jul 2018 · 132 MW · 25 22 Jul 2018 · 1,808 MW · 198 23 Jul 2018 · 10 MW · 6
9 Jul 12 Jul 16 Jul 20 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
59km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.0 mm on 24 Jul.

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 14% of the area of London (228 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. 22,677 ha reached on 9 Jul
    2.0 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)

Started with Strong wind: 15 % of the area in Canada

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
8 Jul 28.5 °C 31 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jul 23.4 °C 55 % 48 km/h 6.0 mm Very low 0
10 Jul 21.7 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
11 Jul 25.6 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
12 Jul 25.8 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Jul 19.0 °C 63 % 40 km/h 13.0 mm Very low 0
14 Jul 26.9 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 0
15 Jul 29.4 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
16 Jul 26.0 °C 57 % 44 km/h 6.6 mm Low 10
17 Jul 17.7 °C 51 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 1
18 Jul 22.6 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
19 Jul 27.4 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
20 Jul 27.9 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
21 Jul 26.5 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
22 Jul 24.4 °C 55 % 48 km/h 3.8 mm Moderate 20
23 Jul 23.0 °C 85 % 22 km/h 16.2 mm Very low 0
24 Jul after 23.7 °C 72 % 36 km/h 14.0 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 32.5, a minimum humidity of 31% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2019: 3.

FWI at the start 32.5
Minimum humidity 31 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Timiskaming, Unorganized, Wes* fire, June 2023
1,877 ha 5 days FWI 27.6 Min. humidity 22 % 6 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 16.1 mm on 11 Jun.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 3. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

14.0 mmfirst rain
24 Julthe day after it ended
59km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 23 Jul, and on 24 Jul 14.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2019.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2018
After · 30 Jul 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 · 1,354Every 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 Canada

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Timiskaming, Unorganized, Wes* fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 July 2018 to 23 July 2018 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 July 2018 to 22 July 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 22,754 hectares (227.5 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire only entered Timiskaming, Unorganized, Wes* (22,677 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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?

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 8 July 2018 to 22 July 2018. 1,354 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.