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US · United States ·

Bull Rock Fire, June 2017 Monterey

Out · last detection 29 Jun 2017, 21:47 UTC

The fire started on 29 June 2017 in Monterey, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 471 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 408th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 589 in United States in 2017, of 619.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
471ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 1day
29 Jun 2017 – 29 Jun 2017
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Jun
2017
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
93MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jun29 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

29 Jun 2017 · 93 MW · 11

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
36km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days 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 county

  1. Monterey where it started
    467 ha reached on 29 Jun
    0.0 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
29 Jun 29.8 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jun after 29.9 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Jul after 27.1 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Jul after 25.2 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Jul after 26.4 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Jul after 28.7 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Jul after 31.6 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Jul after 34.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Jul after 36.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Jul after 37.1 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Jul after 33.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 40.6, a minimum humidity of 15% and 28 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 40.6
Minimum humidity 15 %
Days without rain 28
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Coleman Fire, June 2016
1,166 ha 3 days FWI 47.0 Min. humidity 14 % 24 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
1,002 ha
median area
50 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 3 of 18 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 471 ha against a median of 1,002 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 15 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
36km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 29 Jun, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 3 of 18, with a median of 3.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jun 2017
After · 6 Jul 2017

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 · 11Every 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 Bull Rock Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (29 June 2017). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 29 June 2017 (1 day from 29 June 2017), 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 471 hectares (4.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Monterey (467 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 1,002 ha; 50 % went past 1,000 ha. In 15 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.6 mm.

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.

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.

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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. 11 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 2015, 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.