Wildfires near Lake Charles, LA

Fires near Lake Charles right now

NASA's VIIRS sensors detected 42 thermal hotspots in 8 separate clusters within 80 km of Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States in the last 48 h. The closest is 7 km WNW of the city centre (8 km WNW of Lake Charles), with 2 detections and a peak fire radiative power of 2 MW, which is low-intensity for a single 375 m pixel.

4 clusters are within 25 km, close enough that smoke, ash or road closures may affect the city. Distances are measured from the city centre to the nearest detection, not to the fire's edge.

Every nearby cluster is low intensity (peak under 10 MW), which is typical of agricultural or garden burning, industrial heat sources such as steel works or flares, or small fires rather than a spreading wildfire.

The largest nearby cluster by detections is 55 km WSW (26 km NE of Port Arthur) with 14 detections; first seen Sat 3 am and last seen Sun 3 am local time.

Across United States there are 573 fire clusters in the same window, 65 of them in Louisiana.

Smoke and wind

Wind at Lake Charles is from the ENE at 16 km/h (gusts 21 km/h), so smoke near the city drifts toward the WSW. Relative humidity is 23% and the temperature 27°C.

Lake Charles is not directly downwind of the nearest fire at the moment, though winds shift and plumes from larger fires can still reach the city.

Smoke shows up first as PM2.5 on air-quality monitors; the Lake Charles air quality page has the live reading.

Evacuations and official information

GodsView shows satellite detections only. It does not know fire perimeters, containment or evacuation zones. Always follow evacuation orders from local authorities.

InciWeb (inciweb.wildfire.gov) lists federal wildfire incidents. Evacuation orders come from county sheriffs and emergency management, often via Genasys Protect (protect.genasys.com) or local alert apps.

About satellite fire detections

Satellite thermal hotspots are not all wildfires: gas flares, steel works, volcanoes and planned agricultural or prescribed burns show up too. VIIRS passes over most places about twice a day, so a fire can start or grow between passes, and thick smoke or cloud can hide one.

Fire radiative power (FRP) is the heat a fire gives off, in megawatts per pixel: under 10 MW is usually a small or smouldering fire, over 100 MW an intense flaming front.

Wildfires near other cities

• Wildfires near Port Arthur
• Wildfires near Beaumont
• Wildfires near Lafayette
• Wildfires near Alexandria, LA
• Wildfires near Baytown
• Wildfires near Galveston
• Wildfires near Baton Rouge
• Wildfires near League City

More for this area

• Fires in Louisiana
• Fires in United States
• Air quality in Lake Charles
• Weather warnings
• Live wildfire map
• Wildfires worldwide