How long did the Gap fire last?

It burned between 27 August 2016 and 27 August 2016: 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 13,725 hectares (137.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Siskiyou (13,833 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · 2016-08-27 → 2016-08-27

Gap Fire, August 2016 Siskiyou

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2016, 22:09 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2016 in Siskiyou, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 13,725 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 76th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 30 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area: 13,725ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 27 Aug 2016 – 27 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 27 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 2,058; in a single hotspot: 175 MW
Danger at start: 46; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 433MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug27 Aug

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

34°high

44km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 23 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Siskiyou where it started

13,833 ha reached on 28 Aug

0.8 %

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)
27 Aug	33.6 °C	18 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
28 Aug after	34.0 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
29 Aug after	32.1 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
30 Aug after	29.8 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
31 Aug after	29.1 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
1 Sept after	28.3 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
2 Sept after	25.1 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Sept after	25.6 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Sept after	23.1 °C	27 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
5 Sept after	26.0 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Sept after	27.7 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Sept after	30.0 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Sept after	31.3 °C	18 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
9 Sept after	32.6 °C	13 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Sept after	34.5 °C	13 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
11 Sept after	30.7 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Sept after	24.6 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
13 Sept after	25.4 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
14 Sept after	26.0 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
15 Sept after	28.2 °C	19 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
16 Sept after	31.3 °C	15 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Sept after	31.2 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Sept after	31.7 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Sept after	28.6 °C	32 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Sept after	25.6 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
21 Sept after	19.9 °C	33 %	44 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 20
22 Sept after	19.3 °C	33 %	46 km/h	0.5 mm	High 24
23 Sept after	15.6 °C	39 %	22 km/h	2.1 mm	Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Aug 2016

After · 3 Sept 2016

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.

Detections table · 2,058Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gap fire last?: It burned between 27 August 2016 and 27 August 2016: 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 13,725 hectares (137.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Siskiyou (13,833 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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