How long did the Wood Buffalo fire last?

It burned between 13 August 2017 and 8 September 2017: 27 days, according to the dates recorded by Canada’s CWFIS and the heat detections seen by satellite.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 12,729 hectares (127.3 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.

Which census subdivisions burned?

The fire entered 2 census subdivisions: Wood Buffalo (7,634 ha, 0.1 %); Opportunity No. 17 (5,157 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 76 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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 · 2017-08-13 → 2017-09-08

Wood Buffalo fire, August 2017 Wood Buffalo, Opportunity No. 17

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2017, 11:30 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2017 in Wood Buffalo, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 12,729 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 census subdivisions.

It is the 57th largest in Alberta since 2016 (of 243 with a page). Number 42 in Canada in 2017, of 242.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Wood Buffalo · 2023 Opportunity No. 17 · 2022 Opportunity No. 17 · 2021 Opportunity No. 17 · 2024

Burnt area: 12,729ha; official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration: 27days; 13 Aug 2017 – 8 Sept 2017
Census subdivisions hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 13 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 1,466; in a single hotspot: 409 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 2.7GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug8 Sept

Play back 8 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

13 Aug 16 Aug 18 Aug 29 Aug 4 Sept 6 Sept 8 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

27°high

76km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.9 mm on 9 Sept.

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 8% of the area of London (127 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

Wood Buffalo where it started

7,634 ha reached on 13 Aug

0.1 %
Opportunity No. 17

5,157 ha reached on 13 Aug

0.2 %

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 2015

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
13 Aug	26.7 °C	35 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
14 Aug	19.0 °C	54 %	29 km/h	3.9 mm	Very low 1
15 Aug	16.1 °C	74 %	34 km/h	8.3 mm	Very low 0
16 Aug	20.6 °C	31 %	33 km/h	0.5 mm	Very low 1
17 Aug	22.7 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
18 Aug	20.6 °C	36 %	59 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 11
19 Aug	14.4 °C	48 %	76 km/h	3.0 mm	Very low 3
20 Aug	17.5 °C	37 %	61 km/h	0.5 mm	Low 6
21 Aug	20.3 °C	28 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
22 Aug	21.5 °C	38 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
23 Aug	21.7 °C	54 %	41 km/h	1.6 mm	Very low 4
24 Aug	18.7 °C	67 %	40 km/h	4.4 mm	Very low 0
25 Aug	12.1 °C	76 %	66 km/h	18.0 mm	Very low 0
26 Aug	20.4 °C	40 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 1
27 Aug	20.8 °C	36 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
28 Aug	19.9 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
29 Aug	20.4 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
30 Aug	21.8 °C	45 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
31 Aug	20.2 °C	37 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
1 Sept	19.4 °C	32 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
2 Sept	17.9 °C	39 %	35 km/h	1.8 mm	Very low 4
3 Sept	17.2 °C	35 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
4 Sept	18.4 °C	31 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
5 Sept	25.3 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
6 Sept	25.9 °C	31 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
7 Sept	27.0 °C	28 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
8 Sept	16.9 °C	66 %	38 km/h	4.9 mm	Very low 1
9 Sept after	13.4 °C	60 %	27 km/h	6.9 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Aug 2017

After · 15 Sept 2017

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 · 1,466Every 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

Other fires nearby

All fires in Canada ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Wood Buffalo fire last?: It burned between 13 August 2017 and 8 September 2017: 27 days, according to the dates recorded by Canada’s CWFIS and the heat detections seen by satellite.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter mapped by Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) is 12,729 hectares (127.3 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?: The fire entered 2 census subdivisions: Wood Buffalo (7,634 ha, 0.1 %); Opportunity No. 17 (5,157 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 76 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
CWFIS · Interactive map ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: NBAC (Natural Resources Canada), official.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,466 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 2015, 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.

Where it burned