How long did the Canal Fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (26 June 2020). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 15 July 2020 (20 days from 26 June 2020), 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 30,294 hectares (302.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire entered 2 counties: Juab (15,740 ha, 1.8 %); Millard (14,671 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 95 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 97, 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.

US · United States · 2020-06-26 → 2020-07-15

Canal Fire, June 2020 Juab, Millard

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2020, 09:36 UTC

The fire started on 26 June 2020 in Millard, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 30,294 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 7th largest in Utah since 2016 (of 165 with a page). Number 32 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Leamington · 2019 Wild Horse · 2026 Goat Canyon · 2019 Dry Creek · 2022

Burnt area: 30,294ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: ≈ 20days; 26 Jun 2020 – 15 Jul 2020
Counties hit: 2; counties
Started on: 26 Jun; 2020
Heat detections: 145; in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start: 50; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 113MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jun15 Jul

Play back 15 Jul 2020

How it evolved, day by day

28 Jun 30 Jun 2 Jul 4 Jul 15 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

95km/h · peak gust

3%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,338 ha in 2019.

1,338 ha Leamington fire, October 2019 1,342 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 19% of the area of London (303 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each county

Juab

15,740 ha reached on 30 Jun

1.8 %
Millard where it started

14,671 ha reached on 28 Jun

0.8 %

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 2020

Built-up area6.0 ha

Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 6.0 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2020, 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)
26 Jun	32.0 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
27 Jun	34.6 °C	8 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
28 Jun	30.3 °C	11 %	95 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 97
29 Jun	17.6 °C	23 %	57 km/h	2.3 mm	Moderate 18
30 Jun	22.5 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.2 mm	High 29
1 Jul	31.0 °C	3 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
2 Jul	32.8 °C	5 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
3 Jul	32.6 °C	14 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
4 Jul	34.1 °C	6 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
5 Jul	34.4 °C	8 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
6 Jul	36.2 °C	4 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
7 Jul	35.5 °C	3 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 78
8 Jul	32.3 °C	7 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
9 Jul	34.5 °C	3 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
10 Jul	35.1 °C	4 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
11 Jul	36.4 °C	8 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
12 Jul	37.2 °C	8 %	44 km/h	0.4 mm	Extreme 68
13 Jul	35.8 °C	9 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
14 Jul	34.1 °C	11 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
15 Jul	33.9 °C	8 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
16 Jul after	34.0 °C	10 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 73
17 Jul after	35.6 °C	8 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 72
18 Jul after	35.9 °C	6 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
19 Jul after	34.9 °C	7 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
20 Jul after	35.6 °C	10 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
21 Jul after	33.7 °C	10 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
22 Jul after	28.4 °C	15 %	61 km/h	0.3 mm	Extreme 53
23 Jul after	30.4 °C	15 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
24 Jul after	31.2 °C	11 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
25 Jul after	33.3 °C	10 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Jun 2020

After · 22 Jul 2020

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 · 145Every 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 Canal Fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (26 June 2020). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 15 July 2020 (20 days from 26 June 2020), 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 30,294 hectares (302.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire entered 2 counties: Juab (15,740 ha, 1.8 %); Millard (14,671 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 95 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 97, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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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. 145 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 2020, 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.

Where it burned