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Yellowhead County fire, April 2023 Yellowhead County, Parkland County

Out · last detection 18 May 2023, 10:30 UTC

The fire started on 29 April 2023 in Yellowhead County, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Canada’s CWFIS (Natural Resources Canada) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 6,030 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 census subdivisions.

It is the 88th largest in Alberta since 2016 (of 243 with a page). Number 236 in Canada in 2023, of 489.

Burnt area
6,030ha
official perimeter (CWFIS)
Duration
19days
29 Apr 2023 – 17 May 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
29 Apr
2023
Heat detections
859
in a single hotspot: 703 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
21.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 May 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Apr17 May

How it evolved, day by day

3012345691415161718

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
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 21 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. Yellowhead County where it started
    4,655 ha reached on 30 Apr
    0.2 %
  2. Parkland County
    1,386 ha reached on 30 Apr
    0.5 %

Burnt area inside each census subdivision, 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)
29 Apr 20.6 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Apr 23.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
1 May 26.0 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
2 May 21.9 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
3 May 27.0 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
4 May 28.8 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 May 24.0 °C 21 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 May 17.1 °C 28 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 May 15.2 °C 49 % 41 km/h 5.4 mm Very low 2
8 May 13.8 °C 60 % 27 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 0
9 May 15.7 °C 63 % 23 km/h 5.9 mm Very low 0
10 May 17.1 °C 52 % 27 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 0
11 May 16.8 °C 57 % 23 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 1
12 May 22.6 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 4
13 May 26.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 May 27.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 May 28.3 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 May 20.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
17 May 19.7 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 May after 19.6 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 May after 25.5 °C 31 % 40 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 15
20 May after 23.5 °C 40 % 27 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 5
21 May after 25.6 °C 36 % 27 km/h 3.0 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Apr 2023
After · 24 May 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 20 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 165 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 110: 7.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak165 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10236 µg/m³
Optical depth2.50
272829301234567891011121314151617181920
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 859Every 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 Yellowhead County fire last?
It burned between 29 April 2023 and 17 May 2023: 19 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 6,030 hectares (60.3 km²). Other tallies, such as those of provincial agencies, may give slightly different figures.
Which census subdivisions burned?
The fire entered 2 census subdivisions: Yellowhead County (4,655 ha, 0.2 %); Parkland County (1,386 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % 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

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: 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.