Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States · →

Camp Fire, November 2018 Butte, Plumas

Out · last detection 9 Nov 2018, 21:11 UTC

The fire started on 8 November 2018 in Butte, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 62,167 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 16th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 7 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
62,167ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
8 Nov 2018 – 8 Nov 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
8 Nov
2018
Heat detections
4,631
in a single hotspot: 1,207 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
70.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Nov 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Nov8 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

89

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
73km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 27.4 mm on 21 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Butte where it started
    62,112 ha reached on 8 Nov
    14 %
  2. Plumas
    149 ha reached on 15 Nov
    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 Nov 19.0 °C 10 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Nov after 21.1 °C 9 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Nov after 19.1 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Nov after 20.9 °C 8 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Nov after 20.8 °C 9 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Nov after 18.8 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Nov after 18.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Nov after 18.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Nov after 19.5 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Nov after 18.1 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Nov after 18.8 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Nov after 21.2 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Nov after 17.9 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Nov after 13.0 °C 27 % 54 km/h 27.4 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Nov 2018
After · 15 Nov 2018

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 · 4,631Every 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 Camp fire last?
It burned between 8 November 2018 and 8 November 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 62,167 hectares (621.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Butte (62,112 ha, 14 %); Plumas (149 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 21.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class 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.