How long did the Cave fire last?

It burned between 25 November 2019 and 25 November 2019: 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 1,119 hectares (11.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Santa Barbara (1,127 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 20.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

US · United States · 2019-11-25 → 2019-11-25

Cave Fire, November 2019 Santa Barbara

Out · last detection 26 Nov 2019, 20:07 UTC

The fire started on 25 November 2019 in Santa Barbara, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,119 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 270th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 192 in United States in 2019, of 367.

Burnt area: 1,119ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 25 Nov 2019 – 25 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 25 Nov; 2019
Heat detections: 107; in a single hotspot: 583 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.6GW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Nov25 Nov

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

20°high

58km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 20.1 mm on 27 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Santa Barbara where it started

1,127 ha reached on 26 Nov

0.2 %

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)
25 Nov	20.2 °C	15 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
26 Nov after	14.8 °C	16 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Nov after	9.7 °C	52 %	49 km/h	20.1 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Nov 2019

After · 2 Dec 2019

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 · 107Every 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 Cave fire last?: It burned between 25 November 2019 and 25 November 2019: 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 1,119 hectares (11.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Santa Barbara (1,127 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 20.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

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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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.

Where it burned