Skip to content
worldfires
en
US · United States · →

Elephant Fire, July 2026 Lassen, Sierra, Plumas

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2026, 22:14 UTC

The fire started on 11 July 2026 in Lassen, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 5,637 hectares, spread across 3 counties.

We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Loyalton · 2020Baccarat · 2020Bug · 2026Hawk · 2026

Burnt area
5,637ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
8days
11 Jul 2026 – 18 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
11 Jul
2026
Heat detections
48
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
138MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

18 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jul18 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

16 Jul 2026 · 47 MW · 3 17 Jul 2026 · 268 MW · 25 18 Jul 2026 · 100 MW · 20
16 Jul 17 Jul 18 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
59km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.7 mm on 21 Jul.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,178 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.6% of the area of London (56 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. Lassen where it started
    6,909 ha reached on 16 Jul
    0.6 %
  2. Sierra
    6,851 ha
    2.8 %
  3. Plumas
    6,707 ha reached on 17 Jul
    1.0 %

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)
11 Jul 31.9 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Jul 24.5 °C 27 % 59 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 45
13 Jul 24.7 °C 37 % 26 km/h 2.0 mm Low 10
14 Jul 27.9 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
15 Jul 30.1 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Jul 29.8 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jul 30.5 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Jul 31.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jul after 32.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 38
20 Jul after 30.5 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jul after 26.7 °C 33 % 30 km/h 5.7 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jul 2026
After · 25 Jul 2026

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 14 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1046 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
9101112131415161718192021
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 48Every 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 Elephant fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 July 2026 to 18 July 2026 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 July 2026 to 11 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 5,637 hectares (56.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 3 counties: Lassen (6,909 ha, 0.6 %); Sierra (6,851 ha, 2.8 %); Plumas (6,707 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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
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: NIFC WFIGS (United States), official.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 July 2026 to 11 July 2026. 48 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.