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US · United States · –

Anderson Bridge Fire, March 2026 Cherry

Out · last detection 13 Mar 2026, 09:06 UTC

The fire started on 12 March 2026 in Cherry, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 6,972 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 11th largest in Nebraska since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 70 in United States in 2026, of 419.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mccann · 2023Indian Canyon · 2016

Burnt area
6,972ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
2days
12 Mar 2026 – 13 Mar 2026
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Mar
2026
Heat detections
0
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Mar13 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

13 Mar 2026 · 0 MW · 0

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
87km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 15 Mar.

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 4.4% of the area of London (70 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. Cherry where it started
    6,992 ha reached on 13 Mar
    0.4 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.56 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.56 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)

Started with Strong wind: 27 % of the area in United States

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
12 Mar 21.3 °C 17 % 87 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Mar 9.8 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
14 Mar after 16.1 °C 25 % 56 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 11
15 Mar after -2.0 °C 57 % 69 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 3

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 43.1, a minimum humidity of 17% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.

FWI at the start 43.1
Minimum humidity 17 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mccann Fire, April 2023
2,877 ha 2 days FWI 45.4 Min. humidity 12 % 13 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 10.9 mm on 14 Apr.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
1,266 ha
median area
58 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 19 had it)

It was 5.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

Only 2 of its 19 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. In 4 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.1 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

3.7 mmfirst rain
15 Mar2 days after it ended
87km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Mar, and on 15 Mar 3.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 19, with a median of 3.1 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 · 5 Mar 2026
After · 20 Mar 2026

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 15 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.73
10 Mar12 Mar14 Mar
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 · 0Every 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 Anderson Bridge Fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 March 2026 to 13 March 2026 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 March 2026 to 12 March 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 6,972 hectares (69.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Cherry (6,992 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 21.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 87 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
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: 19. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 1,266 ha; 58 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 19 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. In 4 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.1 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 12 March 2026 → 13 March 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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: NIFC WFIGS (United States), official.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 March 2026 to 12 March 2026. No 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 2025, 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.