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Bobcat Fire, 6 September 2020 Los Angeles

Out · last detection 6 Oct 2020, 20:01 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2020 in Los Angeles, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 46,801 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 23th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 24 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Compare with…

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Burnt area
46,801ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 31days
6 Sept 2020 – 6 Oct 2020
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
6 Sept
2020
Heat detections
6,276
in a single hotspot: 921 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
5.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept6 Oct
6 Oct 2020

How it evolved, day by day

6 Sept 2020 · 719 MW · 16 7 Sept 2020 · 5,672 MW · 216 8 Sept 2020 · 3,291 MW · 196 9 Sept 2020 · 26,809 MW · 689 10 Sept 2020 · 4,733 MW · 191 11 Sept 2020 · 2,986 MW · 231 12 Sept 2020 · 3,004 MW · 231 13 Sept 2020 · 9,041 MW · 200 14 Sept 2020 · 5,606 MW · 304 15 Sept 2020 · 7,544 MW · 363 16 Sept 2020 · 4,901 MW · 226 17 Sept 2020 · 17,626 MW · 493 18 Sept 2020 · 19,697 MW · 749 19 Sept 2020 · 11,305 MW · 819 20 Sept 2020 · 17,072 MW · 535 21 Sept 2020 · 9,859 MW · 187 22 Sept 2020 · 1,736 MW · 208 23 Sept 2020 · 991 MW · 119 24 Sept 2020 · 883 MW · 84 25 Sept 2020 · 182 MW · 69 26 Sept 2020 · 129 MW · 16 27 Sept 2020 · 157 MW · 19 28 Sept 2020 · 45 MW · 15 29 Sept 2020 · 37 MW · 5 30 Sept 2020 · 21 MW · 12 1 Oct 2020 · 128 MW · 11 2 Oct 2020 · 538 MW · 8 3 Oct 2020 · 781 MW · 42 4 Oct 2020 · 119 MW · 21 6 Oct 2020 · 6 MW · 1
6 Sept 9 Sept 11 Sept 16 Sept 21 Sept 26 Sept 1 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
45km/h · peak gust
2%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 241 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 30% of the area of London (468 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. Los Angeles where it started
    47,242 ha reached on 6 Sept
    4.4 %

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 2020
Built-up area28 ha
Residents≈ 550

Inside the perimeter there were about 28 hectares of built-up land and about 550 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
6 Sept 32.7 °C 5 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Sept 24.3 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept 19.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Sept 19.2 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Sept 18.4 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept 20.2 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Sept 20.5 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Sept 21.5 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept 22.2 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 22.1 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept 23.5 °C 5 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Sept 23.9 °C 2 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept 23.2 °C 2 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Sept 21.2 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept 20.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Sept 19.3 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept 19.8 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept 20.9 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept 21.4 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept 18.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept 19.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Sept 20.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Sept 23.5 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Sept 24.9 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Sept 26.3 °C 5 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Oct 26.6 °C 4 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Oct 25.9 °C 3 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Oct 24.5 °C 6 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Oct 22.8 °C 5 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Oct 22.1 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Oct 20.6 °C 7 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Oct after 18.2 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Oct after 14.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Oct after 14.0 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Oct after 13.0 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Oct after 16.7 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
12 Oct after 23.4 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Oct after 23.0 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Oct after 23.1 °C 9 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Oct after 24.0 °C 4 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Oct after 23.1 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2020
After · 13 Oct 2020

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 · 6,276Every 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 Bobcat Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (6 September 2020). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 6 October 2020 (31 days from 6 September 2020), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 46,801 hectares (468.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Los Angeles (47,242 ha, 4.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 2 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
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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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 6,276 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 2020, 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.