How long did the Buck fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2017 to 13 September 2017 (37 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2017 to 8 August 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 858 hectares (8.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Shoshone (849 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.

US · United States · 2017-08-08 → 2017-09-13

Buck Fire, August 2017 Shoshone

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2017, 09:59 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2017 in Shoshone, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 858 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 250th largest in Idaho since 2016 (of 379 with a page). Number 426 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tumbledown · 2021 Stateline Complex · 2021 Devils Pulpit · 2021 Lower Twin · 2022

Burnt area: 858ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 37days; 8 Aug 2017 – 13 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 8 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 228; in a single hotspot: 154 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 47MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug13 Sept

Play back 13 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 18 Aug 28 Aug 1 Sept 2 Sept 5 Sept 9 Sept 13 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

57km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 14 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.5% of the area of London (8.6 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 town

Shoshone where it started

849 ha reached on 8 Aug

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)
8 Aug	28.5 °C	15 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Aug	27.7 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 40
10 Aug	29.0 °C	13 %	25 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 41
11 Aug	30.2 °C	13 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Aug	28.0 °C	15 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 46
13 Aug	18.2 °C	47 %	41 km/h	3.4 mm	Low 5
14 Aug	19.0 °C	37 %	42 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 11
15 Aug	23.1 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
16 Aug	23.7 °C	23 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Aug	23.9 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Aug	26.0 °C	18 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Aug	21.1 °C	25 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Aug	21.4 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
21 Aug	26.0 °C	19 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Aug	28.5 °C	14 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
23 Aug	26.7 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Aug	22.9 °C	31 %	57 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 38
25 Aug	22.9 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Aug	26.4 °C	10 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
27 Aug	29.8 °C	9 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Aug	27.9 °C	12 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
29 Aug	31.6 °C	11 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
30 Aug	29.6 °C	13 %	53 km/h	1.1 mm	High 35
31 Aug	23.7 °C	22 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Sept	27.1 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Sept	30.4 °C	10 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
3 Sept	30.2 °C	9 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
4 Sept	26.0 °C	19 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
5 Sept	26.0 °C	17 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Sept	28.4 °C	15 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
7 Sept	29.8 °C	15 %	22 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 39
8 Sept	25.8 °C	26 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Sept	24.0 °C	36 %	55 km/h	0.4 mm	High 34
10 Sept	20.5 °C	37 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
11 Sept	26.6 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
12 Sept	26.2 °C	16 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
13 Sept	18.9 °C	29 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Sept after	12.3 °C	40 %	32 km/h	4.2 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2017

After · 20 Sept 2017

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.

Detections table · 228Every 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 Buck fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2017 to 13 September 2017 (37 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2017 to 8 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 858 hectares (8.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Shoshone (849 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 August 2017 to 8 August 2017. 228 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.

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.

Where it burned