How long did the Hat Top fire last?

It burned between 20 August 2022 and 20 August 2022: 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 696 hectares (7.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Malheur (703 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 25 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.

US · United States · 2022-08-20 → 2022-08-20

Hat Top Fire, August 2022 Malheur

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2022, 09:55 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2022 in Malheur, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 696 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 262th largest in Oregon since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 381 in United States in 2022, of 493.

The power measured by the satellite is low (4.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 696ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 20 Aug 2022 – 20 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 20 Aug; 2022
Heat detections: 9; in a single hotspot: 5 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 24MW; sum of detected power

Play back 21 Aug 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2021

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

25km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 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

Malheur where it started

703 ha reached on 20 Aug

0.0 %

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)
20 Aug	32.5 °C	17 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Aug after	35.2 °C	7 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
22 Aug after	33.6 °C	9 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
23 Aug after	32.2 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
24 Aug after	33.2 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 52
25 Aug after	33.6 °C	11 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
26 Aug after	32.9 °C	10 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
27 Aug after	27.4 °C	13 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
28 Aug after	27.7 °C	14 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
29 Aug after	31.6 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
30 Aug after	34.0 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
31 Aug after	36.3 °C	9 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Aug 2022

After · 27 Aug 2022

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 19 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1017 µg/m³

Optical depth0.30

181920212223

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 · 9Every 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 Hat Top fire last?: It burned between 20 August 2022 and 20 August 2022: 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 696 hectares (7.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Malheur (703 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 25 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

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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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