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Zitziana River Fire, June 2018 Yukon-Koyukuk

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2018, 22:59 UTC

The fire started on 4 June 2018 in Yukon-Koyukuk, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 28,457 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 30th largest in Alaska since 2016 (of 472 with a page). Number 19 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
28,457ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 31days
4 Jun 2018 – 4 Jul 2018
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
4 Jun
2018
Heat detections
326
in a single hotspot: 346 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
606MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jun4 Jul
4 Jul 2018

How it evolved, day by day

7 Jun 2018 · 326 MW · 12 8 Jun 2018 · 154 MW · 10 9 Jun 2018 · 5 MW · 1 13 Jun 2018 · 3 MW · 1 14 Jun 2018 · 5,014 MW · 125 15 Jun 2018 · 1,462 MW · 142 24 Jun 2018 · 71 MW · 5 25 Jun 2018 · 24 MW · 3 26 Jun 2018 · 12 MW · 3 27 Jun 2018 · 178 MW · 20 3 Jul 2018 · 10 MW · 2 4 Jul 2018 · 10 MW · 2
7 Jun 14 Jun 27 Jun

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
55km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.3 mm on 5 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 18% of the area of London (285 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 county

  1. Yukon-Koyukuk where it started
    27,873 ha reached on 7 Jun
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each county, 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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
4 Jun 23.1 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Low 9
5 Jun 22.1 °C 43 % 35 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 2
6 Jun 23.2 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
7 Jun 20.6 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 12
8 Jun 21.6 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
9 Jun 21.5 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 12
10 Jun 17.5 °C 43 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
11 Jun 12.4 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
12 Jun 15.0 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Low 11
13 Jun 19.7 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
14 Jun 15.4 °C 35 % 55 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
15 Jun 17.5 °C 29 % 22 km/h 1.1 mm Low 8
16 Jun 16.0 °C 59 % 26 km/h 8.5 mm Very low 0
17 Jun 19.0 °C 50 % 23 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 0
18 Jun 19.5 °C 58 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 2
19 Jun 18.8 °C 54 % 29 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 1
20 Jun 23.6 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
21 Jun 27.4 °C 33 % 30 km/h 1.8 mm Low 7
22 Jun 19.0 °C 64 % 48 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 1
23 Jun 20.8 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
24 Jun 19.8 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
25 Jun 21.9 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
26 Jun 20.5 °C 54 % 24 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 2
27 Jun 23.6 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
28 Jun 21.8 °C 46 % 24 km/h 5.2 mm Very low 1
29 Jun 21.2 °C 46 % 23 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 0
30 Jun 20.4 °C 56 % 27 km/h 6.4 mm Very low 0
1 Jul 23.2 °C 41 % 42 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 2
2 Jul 22.9 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
3 Jul 25.0 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
4 Jul 25.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
5 Jul after 23.0 °C 40 % 26 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 2

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 9.1, a minimum humidity of 36% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 9.1
Minimum humidity 36 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Globe Fire, June 2024
8,166 ha 8 days FWI 9.9 Min. humidity 36 % 130 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 13.1 mm on 3 Jul.

What happened to them

20 days
median duration
8,948 ha
median area
47 %
went past 10,000 ha
7.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 15 had it)

It was 3.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 31 days, against 20 days.

Only 3 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.6 mm.

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

4.3 mmfirst rain
5 Julthe day after it ended
55km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 4 Jul, and on 5 Jul 4.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 15, with a median of 7.6 mm.

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 2016.
  • 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 · 28 May 2018
After · 11 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 · 326Every 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 Zitziana River Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (4 June 2018). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 4 July 2018 (31 days from 4 June 2018), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 28,457 hectares (284.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Yukon-Koyukuk (27,873 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 20 days and their median area 8,948 ha; 47 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 3 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.6 mm.

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: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 326 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 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.