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Flat Fire, August 2025 Jefferson, Deschutes

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2025, 21:52 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2025 in Deschutes, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 9,448 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 75th largest in Oregon since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 40 in United States in 2025, of 327.

Burnt area
9,448ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
21 Aug 2025 – 21 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
21 Aug
2025
Heat detections
530
in a single hotspot: 172 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug21 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

22

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
45km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 722 ha in 2017, 1,389 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,994 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Jefferson
    6,269 ha reached on 22 Aug
    1.4 %
  2. Deschutes where it started
    3,171 ha reached on 23 Aug
    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)
21 Aug 31.3 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Aug after 33.6 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Aug after 34.8 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Aug after 35.3 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 48
25 Aug after 29.3 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 40
26 Aug after 28.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Aug after 29.6 °C 30 % 42 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Aug 2025
After · 28 Aug 2025

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 23 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 57: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak102 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10104 µg/m³
Optical depth1.06
192021222324
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 · 530Every 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 Flat fire last?
It burned between 21 August 2025 and 21 August 2025: 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 9,448 hectares (94.5 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Jefferson (6,269 ha, 1.4 %); Deschutes (3,171 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.

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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.

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.