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Davis Fire, July 2018 Lincoln

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2018, 20:17 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2018 in Lincoln, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,871 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 83th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 153 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Compare with…

Suggestions: East Kootenay C · 2018Central Kootenay B · 2025East Kootenay B · 2018East Kootenay C · 2017

Burnt area
2,871ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
27days
29 Jul 2018 – 24 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Jul
2018
Heat detections
772
in a single hotspot: 236 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
530MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul24 Aug
24 Aug 2018

How it evolved, day by day

29 Jul 2018 · 34 MW · 4 30 Jul 2018 · 341 MW · 16 31 Jul 2018 · 37 MW · 12 1 Aug 2018 · 52 MW · 12 2 Aug 2018 · 5 MW · 2 3 Aug 2018 · 221 MW · 10 4 Aug 2018 · 18 MW · 4 9 Aug 2018 · 32 MW · 6 10 Aug 2018 · 18 MW · 5 11 Aug 2018 · 10,035 MW · 388 12 Aug 2018 · 894 MW · 170 13 Aug 2018 · 35 MW · 12 14 Aug 2018 · 42 MW · 9 15 Aug 2018 · 30 MW · 25 16 Aug 2018 · 35 MW · 20 17 Aug 2018 · 10 MW · 7 18 Aug 2018 · 6 MW · 2 19 Aug 2018 · 1 MW · 2 20 Aug 2018 · 14 MW · 5 21 Aug 2018 · 218 MW · 20 22 Aug 2018 · 55 MW · 15 23 Aug 2018 · 36 MW · 15 24 Aug 2018 · 20 MW · 11
29 Jul 2 Aug 10 Aug 11 Aug 14 Aug 18 Aug 22 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

33°high
64km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 26 Aug.

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 1.8% of the area of London (29 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 town

  1. Lincoln where it started
    1,760 ha reached on 29 Jul
    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)
29 Jul 25.7 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Jul 27.8 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Jul 26.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm High 22
1 Aug 25.6 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Aug 22.8 °C 16 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Aug 17.7 °C 27 % 61 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 12
4 Aug 18.5 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Aug 21.4 °C 31 % 19 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 3
6 Aug 23.6 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
7 Aug 25.5 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Aug 27.0 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Aug 29.9 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug 33.0 °C 3 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug 26.1 °C 22 % 62 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 17
12 Aug 14.7 °C 36 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Aug 20.9 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Aug 22.9 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Aug 24.6 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Aug 25.5 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
17 Aug 22.7 °C 23 % 47 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 19
18 Aug 22.9 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Aug 18.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Aug 16.5 °C 31 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug 22.1 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Aug 23.3 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Aug 19.1 °C 23 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Aug 13.8 °C 36 % 59 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
25 Aug after 14.2 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Aug after 10.2 °C 52 % 48 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2018
After · 31 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 · 772Every 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 Davis fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2018 to 24 August 2018 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 July 2018 to 29 July 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 2,871 hectares (28.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Lincoln (1,760 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 July 2018 to 29 July 2018. 772 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.

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.