How long did the Billy fire last?

It burned between 9 July 2025 and 9 July 2025: 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 11,159 hectares (111.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Gila (11,204 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.

US · United States · 2025-07-09 → 2025-07-09

Billy Fire, July 2025 Gila

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2025, 20:14 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2025 in Gila, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 11,159 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 27th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 31 in United States in 2025, of 327.

Burnt area: 11,159ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 9 Jul 2025 – 9 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 9 Jul; 2025
Heat detections: 128; in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start: 51; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 156MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

57km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.9 mm on 22 Jul.

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,061 ha in 2016.

7,061 ha Juniper fire, May 2016 13,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Gila where it started

11,204 ha reached on 10 Jul

0.9 %

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 Jul	35.5 °C	9 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
10 Jul after	33.5 °C	13 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
11 Jul after	31.3 °C	16 %	52 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 52
12 Jul after	30.4 °C	16 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
13 Jul after	30.8 °C	18 %	44 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 46
14 Jul after	29.8 °C	18 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
15 Jul after	29.7 °C	15 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 49
16 Jul after	24.7 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.4 mm	High 32
17 Jul after	27.7 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.6 mm	High 31
18 Jul after	30.8 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
19 Jul after	29.6 °C	17 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
20 Jul after	25.7 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 43
21 Jul after	25.9 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
22 Jul after	25.2 °C	34 %	35 km/h	11.9 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 Jul 2025

After · 16 Jul 2025

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 11 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1088 µg/m³

Optical depth0.22

789101112

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 · 128Every 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

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Billy fire last?: It burned between 9 July 2025 and 9 July 2025: 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 11,159 hectares (111.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Gila (11,204 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned