Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States · →

Branch Fire, July 2020 San Luis Obispo

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2020, 21:35 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2020 in San Luis Obispo, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,341 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 246th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 230 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
1,341ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
28 Jul 2020 – 28 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Jul
2020
Heat detections
20
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
527MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2829

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
35km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. San Luis Obispo where it started
    1,337 ha reached on 28 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)
28 Jul 32.9 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jul after 33.3 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul after 34.2 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jul after 35.1 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Aug after 34.2 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Aug after 35.0 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Aug after 35.0 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Aug after 31.9 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
5 Aug after 28.9 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Aug after 26.4 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug after 28.6 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Aug after 31.0 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2020
After · 4 Aug 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 · 20Every 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 Branch fire last?
It burned between 28 July 2020 and 28 July 2020: 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 1,341 hectares (13.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered San Luis Obispo (1,337 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.