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Junction Ranch Fire, July 2020 Inyo

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2020, 21:35 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2020 in Inyo, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,774 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 148th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 131 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
3,774ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
28 Jul 2020 – 28 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Jul
2020
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
223MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

29

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
53km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Inyo where it started
    3,745 ha reached on 29 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
28 Jul 33.1 °C 5 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Jul after 33.6 °C 4 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
30 Jul after 34.3 °C 7 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
31 Jul after 35.5 °C 6 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
1 Aug after 34.9 °C 4 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Aug after 33.9 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Aug after 33.8 °C 4 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
4 Aug after 32.5 °C 6 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Aug after 30.5 °C 7 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Aug after 27.7 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Aug after 28.1 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Aug after 29.7 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Aug after 31.6 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Aug after 32.3 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Aug after 31.0 °C 8 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Aug after 32.9 °C 5 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2020
After · 4 Aug 2020

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 · 96Every 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 Junction Ranch fire last?
It burned between 28 July 2020 and 28 July 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 3,774 hectares (37.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Inyo (3,745 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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

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.