How long did the Fuzzy fire last?

It burned between 25 July 2021 and 25 July 2021: 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 434 hectares (4.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Dewey (434 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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 · 2021-07-25 → 2021-07-25

Fuzzy Fire, July 2021 Dewey

Out · last measured on 25 Jul 2021

The fire started on 25 July 2021 in Dewey, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 434 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 45th largest in South Dakota since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 377 in United States in 2021, of 385.

We have the official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC) for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by county is there.

Burnt area: 434ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 25 Jul 2021 – 25 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 25 Jul; 2021
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index

The weather it burned in

36°high

47km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.8 mm on 30 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Dewey where it started

434 ha

0.1 %

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)
25 Jul	36.1 °C	30 %	47 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 41
26 Jul after	37.9 °C	30 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
27 Jul after	37.3 °C	32 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
28 Jul after	37.3 °C	30 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Jul after	28.8 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 43
30 Jul after	21.5 °C	61 %	29 km/h	16.8 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Jul 2021

After · 1 Aug 2021

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.

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Fuzzy fire last?: It burned between 25 July 2021 and 25 July 2021: 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 434 hectares (4.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Dewey (434 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned