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Bone Fire, June 2023 Tuolumne

Out · last measured on 16 Jun 2023

The fire started on 16 June 2023 in Tuolumne, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 477 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 406th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 270 in United States in 2023, of 305.

We have the official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC) for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by county is there.

Burnt area
477ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
16 Jun 2023 – 16 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Jun
2023
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

20°high
37km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 22 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Tuolumne where it started
    480 ha
    0.1 %

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)
16 Jun 19.8 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 4
17 Jun after 21.0 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
18 Jun after 18.1 °C 43 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
19 Jun after 11.8 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
20 Jun after 14.0 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
21 Jun after 16.4 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
22 Jun after 14.3 °C 33 % 36 km/h 2.3 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jun 2023
After · 23 Jun 2023

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 16 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.30
141516171819
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bone fire last?
It burned between 16 June 2023 and 16 June 2023: 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 477 hectares (4.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Tuolumne (480 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 19.8 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very low.
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.

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.

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.