Awatchfire

Sheridan County, Wyoming

Pk Fire

Burning 8.7 miles south of Dayton and 11.1 miles south of Ranchester, since Friday 9 October.

Map of Wyoming. The Pk Fire burns 279 miles from Cheyenne, and 279 miles from the state capital, Cheyenne.
The fire sits 279 miles from Cheyenne.

1,645

acres burned so far — about 3 square miles

5

days burning so far

85%

of the perimeter held

The picture as of 10:09am today

The Pk Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. Nothing has given off fresh heat for 126 hours. What is burning has shifted 0.88 miles north-east over the last six hours.

No fresh look at this fire for 126 hours. Everything on the map below was seen before then.

Shaded relief map of the Pk Fire. Amber flames mark every place that gave off heat in the last day; the shading is the shape of the ground.
Heat in the last day Higher ground pale, valleys dark

126hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 3:55am on Saturday, local time.

99% less

energy in the last 5.6 hours of the record than in the 5.6 before them — the fire was cooler when it was last seen.

8.2miles

is how close the heat has come to Dayton at any point in the record. In the last day the nearest heat has been None miles from it, and the closest this fire has come to Ranchester is 9.8 miles, None in the last day.

1.8miles

is the furthest any heat has been seen from the point on the official record — the width of the ground involved so far.

Smoke has been recorded lying over this ground nine times so far. The thickest of it was thick between 2:00pm and 5:30pm local time. The last of those windows closed 137 hours ago, so what is overhead now is not known.

Where the heat is

No cluster large enough to call a separate front. The heat is in one piece.

Conditions measured 15.6 miles from the fire: 33°F, air at 84% humidity, a 18 mph wind out of the north.

How it got here

Two days of record on a day-7 fire

The record here begins at 4:44pm on 9 Oct and runs to 3:54am on 10 Oct — 11 hours, 14 readings of heat. The fire is on day 7, so the first 5 days are missing: nothing showed up from above until the fire was large enough and the sky over it clear enough for it to be seen. There is no long arc to draw yet. What follows is what has actually happened.

Animated map of the Pk Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 18 frames at 1 hour a frame. The bar along the bottom is energy released; the moving line is the clock.

Hour by hour local time

Fri 4:00pmSat 3:00am

Each bar is one hour of local time, sized by how much energy the fire gave off in it. This fire is too young for a day-against-day comparison to say anything, so the hours are shown instead.

Day by day 2 days of record

  1. Map for Fri 9 Oct: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Fri9 Oct

    First readings

    • 5 heat readings
    • Heat from 4:44pm to 9:06pm
    • Spread 1.4 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon and night
  2. Map for Sat 10 Oct: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Sat10 Octlatest

    Cooling off

    • 9 heat readings — the most of any day
    • Energy 99% down on the day before
    • Heat from 2:58am to 3:54am
    • Spread 1.8 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn

How the record has moved

Each step is a change on the interagency incident record — acreage, containment or crews — with the date it was reported. No satellite reading is involved.

  1. Friday 9 October

    First reported

  2. Friday 9 October

    0 acres on record

    0 ac

  3. Friday 9 October

    Grew to 50 acres

    50 ac

  4. Friday 9 October

    Grew to 1,200 acres

    1,200 ac

  5. Saturday 10 October

    Grew to 1,645 acres

    1,645 ac

  6. Saturday 10 October

    Containment 80% — 15 personnel

    1,645 ac · 80% held · 15 crew

  7. Sunday 11 October

    Containment 85% — 8 personnel

    1,645 ac · 85% held · 8 crew

85% of the perimeter is being reported as held. 8 people are assigned to it. It has grown from 0 acres when it was first written down to 1,645 now. Nothing has looked at it for 126 hours, and the record still lists it as active.