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Cougar Fire, July 2018 Bonner

Out · last measured on 28 Jul 2018

The fire started on 28 July 2018 in Bonner, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,523 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 97th largest in Idaho since 2016 (of 379 with a page). Number 135 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
3,523ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
28 Jul 2018 – 28 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Jul
2018
Heat detections
1,359
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul28 Jul

The weather it burned in

36°high
70km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 11 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Bonner where it started
    3,505 ha reached on 30 Jul
    0.7 %

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)
28 Jul 28.0 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
29 Jul after 29.0 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Jul after 30.9 °C 13 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Jul after 31.7 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug after 28.7 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Aug after 26.0 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug after 21.4 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Aug after 22.7 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Aug after 26.3 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
6 Aug after 27.8 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug after 28.2 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug after 30.3 °C 8 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug after 33.8 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Aug after 36.5 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug after 28.1 °C 28 % 53 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
12 Aug after 19.6 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Aug after 24.5 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Aug after 26.6 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug after 27.9 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 29.7 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug after 27.2 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
18 Aug after 25.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Aug after 23.3 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Aug after 20.9 °C 39 % 70 km/h 0.5 mm High 36
21 Aug after 25.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Aug after 26.1 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug after 22.9 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Aug after 19.1 °C 37 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Aug after 17.8 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Aug after 14.0 °C 59 % 45 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 2
27 Aug after 15.4 °C 50 % 42 km/h 9.9 mm Very low 0
28 Aug after 18.9 °C 45 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
29 Aug after 23.0 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
30 Aug after 20.5 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
31 Aug after 19.0 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Sept after 19.9 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
2 Sept after 20.7 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Sept after 19.9 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
4 Sept after 21.2 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Sept after 25.2 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Sept after 27.6 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Sept after 25.1 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Sept after 20.2 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
9 Sept after 19.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Sept after 17.6 °C 42 % 57 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
11 Sept after 14.6 °C 48 % 40 km/h 2.2 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2018
After · 4 Aug 2018

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 · 1,359Every 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 Cougar fire last?
It burned between 28 July 2018 and 28 July 2018: 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 3,523 hectares (35.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Bonner (3,505 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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.

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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.