Wildcat Fire, May 2024 Maricopa
The fire started on 18 May 2024 in Maricopa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 5,735 hectares, spread across a single county.
It is the 59th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 78 in United States in 2024, of 371.
- Burnt area
- 5,735ha
- official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
- Duration
- 1day
- 18 May 2024 – 18 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 18 May
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 93
- in a single hotspot: 166 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.0GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 744 ha in 2019, 384 ha in 2020.
What happened to each town
-
Maricopa where it started5,798 ha reached on 18 May0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 May | 33.4 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 May after | 31.4 °C | 7 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 20 May after | 26.2 °C | 9 % | 55 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 21 May after | 29.1 °C | 6 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 May after | 30.2 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 May after | 30.3 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 24 May after | 31.5 °C | 10 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 25 May after | 27.9 °C | 14 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 26 May after | 30.6 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 27 May after | 33.3 °C | 8 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 28 May after | 35.3 °C | 6 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 29 May after | 33.6 °C | 8 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 19 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 93Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wildcat fire last?
- It burned between 18 May 2024 and 18 May 2024: 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 5,735 hectares (57.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
- Which counties burned?
- The fire only entered Maricopa (5,798 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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
- NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center ↗
- InciWeb · Incident Information System ↗
- MTBS · Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity ↗
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.
Report an error
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.