Colusa fire, October 2026 Colusa
Satellites first detected fire on 14 October 2026 in Colusa, United States. It has been active for 7 days, with 63 heat detections and an area with fire of about 476 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across a single county.
NIFC has not yet published the perimeter of this fire. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.
- Area with fire
- ≈ 476ha
- rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
- Duration
- 7days
- 14 Oct 2026 – 20 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 14 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 63
- in a single hotspot: 85 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 965MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
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
It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
What happened to each town
-
Colusa where it started476 ha reached on 14 Oct0.2 %
Area with fire inside each county, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until NIFC publishes the official perimeter. 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct | 27.2 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Oct | 31.1 °C | 13 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 16 Oct | 32.1 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 17 Oct | 29.2 °C | 17 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Oct | 29.1 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 19 Oct | 21.9 °C | 28 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Oct | 21.6 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 18 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 63Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Colusa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 14 October 2026 to 20 October 2026 (7 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
- How much area did it burn?
- There is no official perimeter yet: NIFC has not published it. Heat detections rebuild about 476 hectares with fire (4.8 km²).
- Which counties burned?
- The fire only entered Colusa (476 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Colusa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 20 Oct 2026, 21:12 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
- NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center ↗
- InciWeb · Incident Information System ↗
- MTBS · Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity ↗
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
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.