Burned area
satellite only706ha
Perimeter published by MTBS (USGS/USFS).
- Source
- MTBS (USGS/USFS)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2020 – 16 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
US · United States ·
High Creek Fire, August 2020 Graham
Out · last measured on 16 Aug 2020
The fire started on 16 August 2020 in Graham, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 706 hectares, spread across a single county.
It is the 281th largest in Arizona since 2016 (of 380 with a page). Number 333 in United States in 2020, of 441.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only1day
16 Aug 2020 to 16 Aug 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- MTBS (USGS/USFS) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Aug 2020 – 16 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only16 Aug 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- MTBS (USGS/USFS) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Danger at the start
model39.2FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 12.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2020, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model36.8°C · 15% RH
High of 36.8 °C and minimum humidity of 15% on 16 August 2020; gusts of 40 km/h on 16 August 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 16 Aug 2020 – 16 Aug 2020
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 706 ha
- Dates
- 16 Aug 2020 – 16 Aug 2020
- Name
- High Creek
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/high-creek-fire-2020-08?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire high-creek-fire-2020-08.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-08-16 | 0 | 0 | 36.8 | 23.2 | 15 | 18.5 | 39.6 | 0.2 | 39.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-17 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 21.9 | 16 | 18.8 | 44.3 | 0.4 | 61.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2020-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 21.7 | 15 | 14.7 | 38.9 | 0.6 | 57.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2020-08-19 | 0 | 0 | 37.7 | 23.5 | 12 | 13.6 | 35.6 | 0 | 55 | extremo | 0 |
| 2020-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 24.3 | 18 | 11.9 | 47.9 | 2.1 | 55.4 | extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: MTBS (USGS/USFS), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
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
- 706ha
- official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
- Duration
- 1day
- 16 Aug 2020 – 16 Aug 2020
- Counties hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 16 Aug
- 2020
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
37°high
40km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity
It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 20 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each county
-
Graham where it started701 ha0.1 %
Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Aug | 36.8 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Aug after | 36.4 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 18 Aug after | 36.4 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.6 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 19 Aug after | 37.7 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 20 Aug after | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 48 km/h | 2.1 mm | Extreme 55 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 39.2, a minimum humidity of 15% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.
FWI at the start
39.2
Minimum humidity
15 %
Days without rain
12
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · High Creek Fire, August 2020
706 ha
1 day
FWI 39.2
Min. humidity 15 %
Watch Fire, July 2024
719 ha
2 days
FWI 41.1
Min. humidity 15 %
91 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 19 Jul.
War Bonnet Fire, August 2019
407 ha
5 days
FWI 36.8
Min. humidity 15 %
34 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.3 mm on 28 Aug.
Ranch Fire, March 2017
1,065 ha
3 days
FWI 36.0
Min. humidity 15 %
103 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ranch Fire, June 2025
1,113 ha
1 day
FWI 38.8
Min. humidity 15 %
136 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Bruno Fire, July 2018
1,684 ha
3 days
FWI 40.9
Min. humidity 15 %
134 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.4 mm on 27 Jul.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 1,331 ha
- median area
- 74 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.3 mm
- rain at the end (median; 15 of 19 had it)
It stayed below its twins: 706 ha against a median of 1,331 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 5 days.
In 4 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.3 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
2.1 mmfirst rain
20 Aug4 days after it ended
40km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 16 Aug, and on 20 Aug 2.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 19, with a median of 2.3 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 9 Aug 2020
After · 23 Aug 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the High Creek Fire last?
- It burned between 16 August 2020 and 16 August 2020: 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 706 hectares (7.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
- Which counties burned?
- The fire only entered Graham (701 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 19. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,331 ha; 74 % went past 1,000 ha. In 4 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.3 mm.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings
- NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center ↗
- InciWeb · Incident Information System ↗
- MTBS · Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity ↗
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.