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Bench Fire, July 2026 Jefferson

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2026, 21:44 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2026 in Jefferson, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 28,092 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 28th largest in Oregon since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 19 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Burnt area
28,092ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
2days
23 Jul 2026 – 24 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
23 Jul
2026
Heat detections
1,831
in a single hotspot: 414 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
13.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul24 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

232425

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
19km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Jefferson where it started
    29,475 ha reached on 23 Jul
    6.4 %

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)
23 Jul 33.0 °C 19 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul 34.5 °C 17 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jul after 27.1 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Jul after 29.6 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jul after 30.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul after 29.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul after 29.6 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jul after 29.8 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jul after 33.2 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Aug after 27.8 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Aug after 26.0 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug after 25.2 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2026
After · 31 Jul 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 21 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 273 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 171: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak273 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10288 µg/m³
Optical depth1.83
2122232425262728293031123
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 · 1,831Every 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 Bench fire last?
It burned between 23 July 2026 and 24 July 2026: 2 days, 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 28,092 hectares (280.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Jefferson (29,475 ha, 6.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

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.