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Delta Fire, August 2018 Shasta, Trinity

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2018, 20:40 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2018 in Shasta, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 25,774 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 44th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 24 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Salt · 2021Hirz · 2018Shoe · 2024Green · 2025

Burnt area
25,774ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
32days
29 Aug 2018 – 29 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
29 Aug
2018
Heat detections
4,133
in a single hotspot: 539 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.9GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug29 Sept
29 Sept 2018

How it evolved, day by day

29 Aug 2018 · 37 MW · 5 30 Aug 2018 · 158 MW · 11 31 Aug 2018 · 326 MW · 35 1 Sept 2018 · 2,918 MW · 90 2 Sept 2018 · 488 MW · 57 3 Sept 2018 · 7 MW · 2 5 Sept 2018 · 8,172 MW · 78 6 Sept 2018 · 13,055 MW · 631 7 Sept 2018 · 4,982 MW · 372 8 Sept 2018 · 5,867 MW · 774 9 Sept 2018 · 3,133 MW · 381 10 Sept 2018 · 3,080 MW · 435 11 Sept 2018 · 4,966 MW · 346 12 Sept 2018 · 859 MW · 207 13 Sept 2018 · 513 MW · 74 14 Sept 2018 · 211 MW · 46 15 Sept 2018 · 241 MW · 55 16 Sept 2018 · 461 MW · 45 17 Sept 2018 · 567 MW · 64 18 Sept 2018 · 255 MW · 39 19 Sept 2018 · 588 MW · 42 20 Sept 2018 · 454 MW · 66 21 Sept 2018 · 98 MW · 34 22 Sept 2018 · 41 MW · 14 25 Sept 2018 · 35 MW · 7 26 Sept 2018 · 1,727 MW · 68 27 Sept 2018 · 272 MW · 44 28 Sept 2018 · 277 MW · 26 29 Sept 2018 · 431 MW · 85
29 Aug 3 Sept 6 Sept 9 Sept 14 Sept 19 Sept 26 Sept

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
46km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.1 mm on 30 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 16% of the area of London (258 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. Shasta where it started
    22,926 ha reached on 29 Aug
    2.3 %
  2. Trinity
    2,966 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.4 %

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 Aug 26.7 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Aug 25.6 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug 28.4 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept 31.6 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept 33.0 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept 33.1 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 31.2 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Sept 29.6 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept 29.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Sept 31.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept 30.1 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 30.7 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept 30.6 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept 25.7 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept 20.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
13 Sept 20.9 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept 21.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept 21.6 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept 23.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Sept 23.7 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Sept 25.3 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept 25.4 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept 28.7 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Sept 27.6 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Sept 26.6 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept 25.9 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Sept 27.9 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Sept 31.0 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Sept 32.6 °C 6 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Sept 32.2 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Sept 28.0 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Sept 17.2 °C 47 % 46 km/h 7.5 mm Very low 4
30 Sept after 17.6 °C 57 % 31 km/h 10.1 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2018
After · 6 Oct 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 · 4,133Every 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 Delta fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 August 2018 to 29 September 2018 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2018 to 5 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 25,774 hectares (257.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Shasta (22,926 ha, 2.3 %); Trinity (2,966 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 5 September 2018 to 5 September 2018. 4,133 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.