How long did the Echo Springs Fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (17 May 2017). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 20 May 2017 (10 days from 11 May 2017), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 3,494 hectares (34.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Highlands (3,518 ha, 1.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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 · 2017-05-11 → 2017-05-20

Echo Springs Fire, May 2017 Highlands

Out · last detection 20 May 2017, 17:33 UTC

The fire started on 11 May 2017 in Highlands, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,494 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 18th largest in Florida since 2016 (of 148 with a page). Number 182 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Highlands · 2018 Highlands · 2018 Chip (47) · 2018 Area 6 North · 2021

Burnt area: 3,494ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: ≈ 10days; 11 May 2017 – 20 May 2017
Counties hit: 1; counties
Started on: 11 May; 2017
Heat detections: 43; in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 220MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 May20 May

Play back 20 May 2017

How it evolved, day by day

11 May 17 May 18 May 20 May

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

52km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.7 mm on 24 May.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (35 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 county

Highlands where it started

3,518 ha reached on 11 May

1.2 %

Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
11 May	35.5 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
12 May	33.6 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
13 May	32.0 °C	32 %	52 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
14 May	32.7 °C	29 %	35 km/h	5.7 mm	Low 7
15 May	32.5 °C	43 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
16 May	33.5 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
17 May	32.5 °C	46 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
18 May	32.9 °C	45 %	46 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
19 May	32.5 °C	48 %	42 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 12
20 May	34.1 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
21 May after	32.3 °C	40 %	27 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
22 May after	34.9 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 20
23 May after	34.8 °C	32 %	44 km/h	0.3 mm	High 29
24 May after	33.5 °C	45 %	70 km/h	11.7 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 May 2017

After · 27 May 2017

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 · 43Every 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 Echo Springs Fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (17 May 2017). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 20 May 2017 (10 days from 11 May 2017), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 3,494 hectares (34.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Highlands (3,518 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 43 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.

Where it burned