How long did the Cache Creek fire last?

It burned between 28 July 2018 and 28 July 2018: 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 1,088 hectares (10.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Garfield (1,082 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.9 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 69 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 · 2018-07-28 → 2018-07-28

Cache Creek Fire, July 2018 Garfield

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2018, 10:19 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2018 in Garfield, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,088 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 89th largest in Colorado since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 296 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area: 1,088ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 28 Jul 2018 – 28 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 28 Jul; 2018
Heat detections: 204; in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 4MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

69km/h · peak gust

5%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Garfield where it started

1,082 ha reached on 29 Jul

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 Jul	24.1 °C	20 %	57 km/h	0.6 mm	Very high 39
29 Jul after	26.1 °C	6 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
30 Jul after	24.2 °C	9 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
31 Jul after	27.2 °C	5 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
1 Aug after	23.8 °C	14 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
2 Aug after	26.4 °C	12 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
3 Aug after	21.0 °C	27 %	34 km/h	3.5 mm	Low 6
4 Aug after	25.7 °C	12 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
5 Aug after	25.7 °C	10 %	69 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 46
6 Aug after	25.6 °C	10 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Aug after	27.1 °C	6 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
8 Aug after	26.8 °C	7 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Aug after	27.7 °C	7 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
10 Aug after	27.2 °C	6 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
11 Aug after	26.7 °C	9 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Aug after	27.9 °C	9 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
13 Aug after	27.7 °C	9 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
14 Aug after	26.5 °C	14 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 43
15 Aug after	24.4 °C	15 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 Aug after	24.6 °C	16 %	34 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 21
17 Aug after	23.7 °C	21 %	28 km/h	0.5 mm	High 28
18 Aug after	22.3 °C	16 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Aug after	20.5 °C	21 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
20 Aug after	23.6 °C	11 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Aug after	17.9 °C	25 %	50 km/h	0.7 mm	High 28
22 Aug after	18.1 °C	31 %	47 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
23 Aug after	19.9 °C	29 %	52 km/h	6.1 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Jul 2018

After · 4 Aug 2018

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 · 204Every 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 Cache Creek fire last?: It burned between 28 July 2018 and 28 July 2018: 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 1,088 hectares (10.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Garfield (1,082 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.9 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 69 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.

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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