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US · United States · –

Candy Creek Fire, March 2021 Osage, Washington

Out · last detection 13 Apr 2021, 19:15 UTC

The fire started on 28 March 2021 in Osage, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 9,394 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 12th largest in Oklahoma since 2016 (of 282 with a page). Number 60 in United States in 2021, of 385.

Compare with…
Burnt area
9,394ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 23days
28 Mar 2021 – 19 Apr 2021
Counties hit
2
counties
Started on
28 Mar
2021
Heat detections
218
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
109MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Mar19 Apr
13 Apr 2021

How it evolved, day by day

28 Mar 2021 · 48 MW · 12 29 Mar 2021 · 264 MW · 23 30 Mar 2021 · 41 MW · 30 31 Mar 2021 · 353 MW · 26 1 Apr 2021 · 232 MW · 25 2 Apr 2021 · 65 MW · 25 3 Apr 2021 · 507 MW · 42 4 Apr 2021 · 17 MW · 14 5 Apr 2021 · 3 MW · 1 6 Apr 2021 · 0 MW · 1 8 Apr 2021 · 7 MW · 2 10 Apr 2021 · 33 MW · 5 11 Apr 2021 · 60 MW · 6 12 Apr 2021 · 2 MW · 4 13 Apr 2021 · 6 MW · 2
28 Mar 31 Mar 3 Apr 6 Apr 11 Apr

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
70km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 20 Apr.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.9% of the area of London (94 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

  1. Osage where it started
    9,280 ha reached on 28 Mar
    1.6 %
  2. 108 ha reached on 3 Apr
    0.1 %

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 area5.0 ha
Residents≈ 100

Inside the perimeter there were about 5.0 hectares of built-up land and about 100 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)
28 Mar 17.7 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
29 Mar 24.4 °C 24 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Mar 18.6 °C 28 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
31 Mar 15.6 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
1 Apr 15.6 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
2 Apr 20.1 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Apr 23.0 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Apr 24.5 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
5 Apr 25.1 °C 44 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
6 Apr 23.0 °C 63 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Apr 20.3 °C 48 % 60 km/h 6.2 mm Very low 3
8 Apr 24.0 °C 23 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
9 Apr 24.5 °C 55 % 70 km/h 21.7 mm Low 8
10 Apr 18.8 °C 35 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
11 Apr 27.7 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
12 Apr 18.4 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Apr 18.6 °C 27 % 47 km/h 3.3 mm Moderate 17
14 Apr 17.9 °C 37 % 33 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 1
15 Apr 14.7 °C 46 % 30 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 2
16 Apr 11.2 °C 80 % 33 km/h 12.4 mm Very low 0
17 Apr 11.6 °C 57 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
18 Apr 17.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 1
19 Apr 22.1 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
20 Apr after 8.4 °C 40 % 54 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 2

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 4.3, a minimum humidity of 28% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.

FWI at the start 4.3
Minimum humidity 28 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mission Fire, April 2016
1,591 ha 3 days FWI 2.5 Min. humidity 28 % 39 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 10 Apr.

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
1,313 ha
median area
59 %
went past 1,000 ha
7.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 32 of 32 had it)

It was 7.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 23 days, against 6 days.

Only 1 of its 32 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.6 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

1.5 mmfirst rain
20 Aprthe day after it ended
70km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Apr, and on 20 Apr 1.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 32 of 32, with a median of 7.6 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 · 21 Mar 2021
After · 26 Apr 2021

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 · 218Every 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 Candy Creek Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (29 March 2021). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 19 April 2021 (23 days from 28 March 2021), 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 9,394 hectares (93.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Osage (9,280 ha, 1.6 %); Washington (108 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class 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: 32. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 1,313 ha; 59 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 1 of its 32 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.6 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. 218 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.