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Butte Fire, August 2025 Malheur

Out · last measured on 28 Aug 2025

The fire started on 28 August 2025 in Malheur, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,988 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 171th largest in Oregon since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 141 in United States in 2025, of 327.

We have the official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC) for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks them up automatically when they are available.

Burnt area
1,988ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
28 Aug 2025 – 28 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Aug
2025
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

30°high
24km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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 town

  1. Malheur where it started
    1,970 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)
28 Aug 30.2 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Aug after 32.5 °C 5 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Aug after 33.5 °C 5 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
31 Aug after 35.4 °C 6 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
1 Sept after 35.6 °C 6 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Sept after 36.1 °C 5 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
3 Sept after 32.7 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
4 Sept after 33.0 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Sept after 32.8 °C 11 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Sept after 30.8 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
7 Sept after 30.4 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2025
After · 4 Sept 2025

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 28 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1024 µg/m³
Optical depth0.56
262728293031
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 Butte fire last?
It burned between 28 August 2025 and 28 August 2025: 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 1,988 hectares (19.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Malheur (1,970 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.