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Fraser Valley A fire, 3 July 2026 Fraser Valley A, Thompson-Nicola I (Blue Sky C*, Thompson-Nicola N (Beautiful *

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2026, 21:21 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2026 in Fraser Valley A, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,793 hectares from heat detections, spread across 8 municipalities.

It is the 57th largest in British Columbia since 2016 (of 449 with a page). Number 32 in Canada in 2026, of 549.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Fraser Valley A · 2023Thompson-Nicola I (Blue Sky C* · 2021Fraser Valley A · 2026Thompson-Nicola N (Beautiful * · 2026

Burnt area
20,793ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
3 Jul 2026 – 20 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
8
municipalities
Started on
3 Jul
2026
Heat detections
1,323
in a single hotspot: 728 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
1.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul20 Jul
21 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

3 Jul 2026 · 2 MW · 2 4 Jul 2026 · 80 MW · 10 5 Jul 2026 · 397 MW · 69 6 Jul 2026 · 1,517 MW · 89 7 Jul 2026 · 6,645 MW · 211 8 Jul 2026 · 4,528 MW · 699 9 Jul 2026 · 553 MW · 150 10 Jul 2026 · 5 MW · 3 16 Jul 2026 · 84 MW · 4 17 Jul 2026 · 41 MW · 23 18 Jul 2026 · 40 MW · 6 19 Jul 2026 · 112 MW · 8 20 Jul 2026 · 94 MW · 24 21 Jul 2026 · 372 MW · 25
3 Jul 5 Jul 7 Jul 9 Jul 16 Jul 18 Jul 20 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

29°high
62km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 23 Jul.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 102 ha in 2021, 557 ha in 2023.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (208 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. Fraser Valley A where it started
    17,409 ha reached on 3 Jul
    7.4 %
  2. Thompson-Nicola I (Blue Sky C*
    1,832 ha reached on 8 Jul
    0.3 %
  3. Thompson-Nicola N (Beautiful *
    1,055 ha reached on 7 Jul
    0.4 %
  4. Inkahtsaph 6
    191 ha reached on 8 Jul
    99 %
  5. Speyum 3
    162 ha reached on 5 Jul
    100 %
  6. Boothroyd 13
    85 ha reached on 8 Jul
    100 %
  7. Kopchitchin 2
    23 ha
    16 %
  8. Kahmoose 4
    21 ha
    100 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS 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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area4.2 ha
Residents≈ 300

Inside the perimeter there were about 4.2 hectares of built-up land and about 300 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
3 Jul 20.4 °C 52 % 45 km/h 0.9 mm Very low 2
4 Jul 18.1 °C 58 % 59 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
5 Jul 23.5 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.7 mm Low 7
6 Jul 27.1 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
7 Jul 24.2 °C 39 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
8 Jul 22.0 °C 41 % 52 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
9 Jul 21.6 °C 51 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
10 Jul 20.6 °C 52 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
11 Jul 18.1 °C 55 % 55 km/h 1.4 mm Low 6
12 Jul 19.3 °C 39 % 62 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 4
13 Jul 24.4 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
14 Jul 26.5 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Jul 28.5 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Jul 28.6 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 21
17 Jul 24.9 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Jul 19.6 °C 57 % 55 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
19 Jul 25.1 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
20 Jul 27.6 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jul after 31.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Jul after 32.2 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jul after 28.1 °C 40 % 44 km/h 2.1 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jun 2026
After · 27 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 23 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 419 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 252: 17 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak419 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10425 µg/m³
Optical depth1.85
1234567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 1,323Every 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 Canada ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Fraser Valley A fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 July 2026 to 20 July 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 July 2026 to 13 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 20,793 hectares (207.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 8 municipalities: Fraser Valley A (17,409 ha, 7.4 %); Thompson-Nicola I (Blue Sky C* (1,832 ha, 0.3 %); Thompson-Nicola N (Beautiful * (1,055 ha, 0.4 %); Inkahtsaph 6 (191 ha, 99 %); Speyum 3 (162 ha, 100 %); Boothroyd 13 (85 ha, 100 %); Kopchitchin 2 (23 ha, 16 %); Kahmoose 4 (21 ha, 100 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Canada (geoBoundaries). 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 13 July 2026 → 20 July 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 July 2026 to 13 July 2026. 1,323 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.