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Crow Rock Fire, July 2017 Custer

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2017, 21:00 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2017 in Custer, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,356 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 70th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 189 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Burnt area
3,356ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
7 Jul 2017 – 7 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
7 Jul
2017
Heat detections
14
in a single hotspot: 159 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
755MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul7 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

7

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high
37km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Custer where it started
    3,382 ha reached on 7 Jul
    0.3 %

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)
7 Jul 35.0 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
8 Jul after 38.2 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
9 Jul after 35.0 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Jul after 34.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Very extreme 90
11 Jul after 29.5 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 50
12 Jul after 26.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jul after 34.8 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jul after 38.4 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.8 mm Extreme 67
15 Jul after 35.7 °C 16 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Jul after 38.4 °C 12 % 53 km/h 0.2 mm Very extreme 80
17 Jul after 31.0 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2017
After · 14 Jul 2017

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 · 14Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Crow Rock fire last?
It burned between 7 July 2017 and 7 July 2017: 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 3,356 hectares (33.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Custer (3,382 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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

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
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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.