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Cliff Creek Fire, July 2016 Sublette, Teton

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2016, 21:06 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2016 in Teton, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 57 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 14,612 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 9th largest in Wyoming since 2016 (of 117 with a page). Number 24 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Roosevelt · 2018Dollar Lake · 2025

Burnt area
14,612ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 57days
17 Jul 2016 – 11 Sept 2016
Counties hit
2
counties
Started on
17 Jul
2016
Heat detections
2,313
in a single hotspot: 437 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
884MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul11 Sept
11 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2016 · 4,532 MW · 108 19 Jul 2016 · 1,638 MW · 229 20 Jul 2016 · 3,980 MW · 155 21 Jul 2016 · 2,131 MW · 181 22 Jul 2016 · 318 MW · 76 23 Jul 2016 · 2,775 MW · 75 24 Jul 2016 · 1,902 MW · 114 25 Jul 2016 · 4,426 MW · 155 26 Jul 2016 · 2,824 MW · 179 27 Jul 2016 · 4,277 MW · 224 28 Jul 2016 · 3,587 MW · 147 29 Jul 2016 · 898 MW · 178 30 Jul 2016 · 60 MW · 50 31 Jul 2016 · 89 MW · 24 1 Aug 2016 · 128 MW · 27 2 Aug 2016 · 36 MW · 27 3 Aug 2016 · 494 MW · 48 4 Aug 2016 · 553 MW · 95 5 Aug 2016 · 27 MW · 10 6 Aug 2016 · 26 MW · 27 7 Aug 2016 · 18 MW · 11 9 Aug 2016 · 6 MW · 1 10 Aug 2016 · 7 MW · 4 12 Aug 2016 · 2 MW · 1 13 Aug 2016 · 3 MW · 2 14 Aug 2016 · 3 MW · 1 16 Aug 2016 · 15 MW · 3 17 Aug 2016 · 12 MW · 6 21 Aug 2016 · 18 MW · 4 22 Aug 2016 · 35 MW · 9 23 Aug 2016 · 30 MW · 9 24 Aug 2016 · 17 MW · 5 25 Aug 2016 · 10 MW · 1 26 Aug 2016 · 2 MW · 1 27 Aug 2016 · 9 MW · 5 28 Aug 2016 · 17 MW · 5 29 Aug 2016 · 8 MW · 5 30 Aug 2016 · 40 MW · 11 31 Aug 2016 · 932 MW · 74 2 Sept 2016 · 6 MW · 5 11 Sept 2016 · 337 MW · 21
18 Jul 24 Jul 30 Jul 5 Aug 13 Aug 23 Aug 29 Aug

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
71km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 12 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.2% of the area of London (146 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. Sublette
    10,067 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.8 %
  2. Teton where it started
    4,556 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.4 %

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 2015
Built-up area0.19 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.19 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
17 Jul 23.4 °C 19 % 53 km/h 0.9 mm High 24
18 Jul 25.1 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Jul 25.1 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Jul 26.1 °C 18 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul 27.2 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Jul 25.5 °C 20 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jul 23.1 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jul 25.4 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul 27.1 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 27.1 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jul 27.5 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jul 26.4 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jul 27.2 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul 25.6 °C 21 % 56 km/h 1.3 mm High 28
31 Jul 25.2 °C 22 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug 26.1 °C 16 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Aug 26.3 °C 16 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Aug 23.7 °C 10 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Aug 25.3 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Aug 24.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug 22.8 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
7 Aug 23.2 °C 34 % 58 km/h 4.7 mm Low 6
8 Aug 23.4 °C 15 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Aug 23.2 °C 17 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug 20.9 °C 21 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Aug 20.5 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Aug 22.3 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug 24.1 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 24.3 °C 15 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug 25.4 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
16 Aug 26.2 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug 24.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 19
18 Aug 19.5 °C 35 % 34 km/h 2.1 mm Low 7
19 Aug 20.7 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
20 Aug 22.4 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug 24.9 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Aug 23.4 °C 13 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug 20.8 °C 15 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Aug 18.6 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 17.8 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
26 Aug 18.3 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
27 Aug 20.6 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug 23.4 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Aug 25.2 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug 25.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Aug 25.2 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Sept 22.9 °C 27 % 45 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 15
2 Sept 21.2 °C 27 % 59 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
3 Sept 17.7 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
4 Sept 13.0 °C 49 % 45 km/h 17.9 mm Very low 0
5 Sept 12.5 °C 29 % 55 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 4
6 Sept 16.3 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
7 Sept 16.0 °C 28 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Sept 16.6 °C 31 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Sept 14.2 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Sept 19.0 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Sept 19.5 °C 18 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept after 13.3 °C 43 % 45 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jul 2016
After · 18 Sept 2016

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 · 2,313Every 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 Cliff Creek Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (17 July 2016). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 11 September 2016 (57 days from 17 July 2016), 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 14,612 hectares (146.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Sublette (10,067 ha, 0.8 %); Teton (4,556 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 71 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 · 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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. 2,313 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 2015, 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.