Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States · →

Bug Fire, August 2026 Washoe, Lassen, Sierra

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2026, 21:59 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2026 in Washoe, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 37,933 hectares, spread across 3 counties.

It is the 9th largest in Nevada since 2016 (of 237 with a page). Number 13 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Burnt area
37,933ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
8 Aug 2026 – 8 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
8 Aug
2026
Heat detections
517
in a single hotspot: 392 MW
Danger at start
84
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

9

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
38km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 12 Aug.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 662 ha in 2016, 3,279 ha in 2017, 296 ha in 2019, 6,260 ha in 2020, 170 ha in 2025.

What happened to each town

  1. Washoe where it started
    33,063 ha reached on 9 Aug
    2.0 %
  2. Lassen
    4,344 ha reached on 9 Aug
    0.4 %
  3. Sierra
    125 ha
    0.0 %

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 34.8 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
9 Aug after 34.8 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 92
10 Aug after 33.5 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 86
11 Aug after 31.9 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm Very extreme 89
12 Aug after 28.6 °C 15 % 33 km/h 2.1 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2026
After · 15 Aug 2026

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 12 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 190 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 72: 4.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak190 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10191 µg/m³
Optical depth1.03
6789101112131415161718
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 · 517Every 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 Bug fire last?
It burned between 8 August 2026 and 8 August 2026: 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 37,933 hectares (379.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 3 counties: Washoe (33,063 ha, 2.0 %); Lassen (4,344 ha, 0.4 %); Sierra (125 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 84, class Very 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

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.