How long did the Bears fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 July 2018 to 14 August 2018 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 July 2018 to 26 July 2018.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 2,136 hectares (21.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Gila (2,149 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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.

US · United States · 2018-07-26 → 2018-08-14

Bears Fire, July 2018 Gila

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2018, 20:00 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2018 in Gila, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,136 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 125th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 189 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Hidden · 2020 Juniper · 2016 Billy · 2025 Bush · 2020

Burnt area: 2,136ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 20days; 26 Jul 2018 – 14 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 26 Jul; 2018
Heat detections: 366; in a single hotspot: 129 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 427MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul14 Aug

Play back 14 Aug 2018

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jul 1 Aug 3 Aug 5 Aug 6 Aug 7 Aug 14 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

42km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 16 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (21 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 town

Gila where it started

2,149 ha reached on 27 Jul

0.2 %

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)
26 Jul	32.5 °C	24 %	42 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 18
27 Jul	31.5 °C	30 %	39 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 14
28 Jul	30.4 °C	35 %	32 km/h	5.0 mm	Very low 3
29 Jul	29.9 °C	32 %	34 km/h	1.0 mm	Low 10
30 Jul	30.4 °C	37 %	38 km/h	2.5 mm	Low 7
31 Jul	31.4 °C	30 %	33 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 13
1 Aug	31.8 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.4 mm	High 22
2 Aug	30.8 °C	27 %	33 km/h	2.3 mm	Low 10
3 Aug	31.5 °C	24 %	39 km/h	4.1 mm	Low 8
4 Aug	32.4 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
5 Aug	32.5 °C	22 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Aug	34.6 °C	14 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
7 Aug	34.0 °C	18 %	35 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
8 Aug	30.8 °C	32 %	38 km/h	1.9 mm	Moderate 12
9 Aug	29.1 °C	29 %	41 km/h	3.9 mm	Low 6
10 Aug	28.5 °C	40 %	41 km/h	3.1 mm	Very low 5
11 Aug	30.0 °C	18 %	34 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 15
12 Aug	28.3 °C	32 %	37 km/h	6.1 mm	Very low 3
13 Aug	26.6 °C	45 %	37 km/h	3.3 mm	Very low 2
14 Aug	28.6 °C	33 %	40 km/h	2.6 mm	Very low 4
15 Aug after	26.4 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 10
16 Aug after	29.4 °C	38 %	31 km/h	3.2 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Jul 2018

After · 21 Aug 2018

Before After

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 · 366Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

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Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bears fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 July 2018 to 14 August 2018 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 July 2018 to 26 July 2018.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 2,136 hectares (21.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Gila (2,149 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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.

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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 July 2018 to 26 July 2018. 366 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.

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.

Where it burned