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Hat Fire, July 2026 Malheur

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2026, 21:42 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2026 in Malheur, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 17,807 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 45th largest in Oregon since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 27 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Burnt area
17,807ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
24 Jul 2026 – 24 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
24 Jul
2026
Heat detections
587
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul24 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2425

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
24km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Malheur where it started
    17,808 ha reached on 24 Jul
    0.7 %

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)
24 Jul 34.8 °C 6 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jul after 33.2 °C 5 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
26 Jul after 30.8 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Jul after 29.8 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Jul after 29.9 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Jul after 31.0 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jul after 31.4 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jul after 35.2 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Aug after 31.5 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Aug after 25.0 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 Aug after 24.4 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2026
After · 31 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 27 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 287 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 148: 9.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak287 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10290 µg/m³
Optical depth2.27
222324252627282930
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 · 587Every 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 Hat fire last?
It burned between 24 July 2026 and 24 July 2026: 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 17,807 hectares (178.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Malheur (17,808 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

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.