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Atlas Fire, October 2017 Napa, Solano

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2017, 21:18 UTC

The fire started on 9 October 2017 in Napa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 20,894 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 55th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 36 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Burnt area
20,894ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
9 Oct 2017 – 9 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
9 Oct
2017
Heat detections
1,532
in a single hotspot: 1,272 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
17.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Oct9 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

910

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
72km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 20 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Napa where it started
    18,317 ha reached on 9 Oct
    9.0 %
  2. Solano
    2,603 ha reached on 9 Oct
    1.1 %

Burnt area inside each county, 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)
9 Oct 25.5 °C 11 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
10 Oct after 25.6 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Oct after 22.2 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Oct after 23.2 °C 5 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Oct after 24.6 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Oct after 24.8 °C 12 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Oct after 26.9 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Oct after 29.6 °C 8 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Oct after 28.5 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Oct after 25.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Oct after 18.3 °C 55 % 50 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
20 Oct after 15.6 °C 40 % 54 km/h 5.2 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Oct 2017
After · 16 Oct 2017

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 · 1,532Every 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 Atlas fire last?
It burned between 9 October 2017 and 9 October 2017: 1 day, according to the start date recorded by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) and the heat detections seen by satellite.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 20,894 hectares (208.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Napa (18,317 ha, 9.0 %); Solano (2,603 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.9 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
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.

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 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.