How long did the Devil fire last?

It burned between 9 September 2020 and 9 September 2020: 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 3,660 hectares (36.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Siskiyou (3,686 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.

US · United States · 2020-09-09 → 2020-09-09

Devil Fire, September 2020 Siskiyou

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2020, 21:31 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2020 in Siskiyou, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,660 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 152th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 134 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area: 3,660ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 9 Sept 2020 – 9 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 9 Sept; 2020
Heat detections: 914; in a single hotspot: 362 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 8.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Sept 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

910

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

The weather it burned in

26°high

64km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.8 mm on 10 Oct.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2017.

11 ha Abney fire, August 2017 13,534 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Siskiyou where it started

3,686 ha reached on 9 Sept

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)
9 Sept	26.3 °C	10 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
10 Sept after	24.2 °C	12 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Sept after	23.4 °C	20 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
12 Sept after	22.0 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Sept after	21.8 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Sept after	19.6 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 Sept after	21.2 °C	19 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Sept after	20.0 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
17 Sept after	17.6 °C	41 %	38 km/h	3.7 mm	Very low 5
18 Sept after	12.0 °C	73 %	48 km/h	4.6 mm	Very low 0
19 Sept after	15.8 °C	38 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
20 Sept after	18.5 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
21 Sept after	17.7 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
22 Sept after	16.4 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
23 Sept after	17.4 °C	36 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
24 Sept after	13.4 °C	39 %	47 km/h	3.9 mm	Very low 3
25 Sept after	10.8 °C	37 %	40 km/h	1.4 mm	Very low 4
26 Sept after	13.4 °C	53 %	33 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 6
27 Sept after	19.0 °C	26 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
28 Sept after	25.9 °C	12 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
29 Sept after	24.5 °C	13 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
30 Sept after	22.8 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
1 Oct after	23.3 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
2 Oct after	22.0 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
3 Oct after	22.0 °C	20 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Oct after	17.9 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Oct after	21.9 °C	18 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Oct after	22.2 °C	14 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Oct after	19.6 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
8 Oct after	17.7 °C	16 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Oct after	17.0 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
10 Oct after	8.5 °C	76 %	61 km/h	13.8 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Sept 2020

After · 16 Sept 2020

Before After

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 · 914Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Devil fire last?: It burned between 9 September 2020 and 9 September 2020: 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 3,660 hectares (36.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Siskiyou (3,686 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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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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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.

Where it burned