Ferry fire, October 2026 Ferry
Satellites first detected fire on 20 October 2026 in Ferry, United States. It has been active for 4 days, with 53 heat detections and an area with fire of about 434 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across a single county.
The power measured by the satellite is low (27.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
NIFC has not yet published the perimeter of this fire. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 21:21 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Area with fire
- ≈ 434ha
- rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
- Duration
- 4days
- 20 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 53
- in a single hotspot: 27 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 399MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
What happened to each town
-
Ferry where it started434 ha reached on 20 Oct0.1 %
Area with fire inside each county, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until NIFC publishes the official perimeter. 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct | 18.1 °C | 31 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 21 Oct | 16.3 °C | 39 % | 14 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 22 Oct | 16.6 °C | 40 % | 16 km/h | 4.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 23 Oct | 13.4 °C | 26 % | 49 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 8 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 22 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 53Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 21,766 haSwawilla I FerryJuly 2024 · 1 day · 9 km away
- 15,130 haChuweah Creek Fire OkanoganJuly 2021 · 1 day · 12 km away
- 18,071 haWilliams Flats FerryAugust 2019 · 1 day · 21 km away
- 55,962 haKaiser Canyon OkanoganJuly 2026 · 1 day · 26 km away
- 8,840 haRattlesnake FerrySeptember 2025 · 1 day · 30 km away
- 23,312 haModrite FerryJuly 2026 · 1 day · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ferry fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 20 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (4 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
- How much area did it burn?
- There is no official perimeter yet: NIFC has not published it. Heat detections rebuild about 434 hectares with fire (4.3 km²).
- Which counties burned?
- The fire only entered Ferry (434 ha, 0.1 %).
- Is the Ferry fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 21:21 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 18.1 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 16 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
- 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
- NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center ↗
- InciWeb · Incident Information System ↗
- MTBS · Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity ↗
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
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.