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Head Fire, August 2023 Siskiyou

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2023, 22:10 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2023 in Siskiyou, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,865 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 173th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 64 in United States in 2023, of 305.

Burnt area
2,865ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
15 Aug 2023 – 15 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
15 Aug
2023
Heat detections
278
in a single hotspot: 295 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
50km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.1 mm on 21 Aug.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 306 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Siskiyou where it started
    2,882 ha reached on 16 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
15 Aug 38.0 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 40
16 Aug after 38.2 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug after 34.6 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
18 Aug after 33.9 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
19 Aug after 34.0 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
20 Aug after 30.7 °C 32 % 29 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 19
21 Aug after 26.3 °C 52 % 40 km/h 8.1 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2023
After · 22 Aug 2023

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 18 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 81: 5.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10156 µg/m³
Optical depth2.09
131415161718
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 · 278Every 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 Head fire last?
It burned between 15 August 2023 and 15 August 2023: 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 2,865 hectares (28.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Siskiyou (2,882 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.