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Keystone Fire, July 2026 Rio Blanco, Moffat

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2026, 21:16 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2026 in Rio Blanco, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,231 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 85th largest in Colorado since 2016 (of 167 with a page). Number 244 in United States in 2026, of 423.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.3 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
1,231ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
21 Jul 2026 – 21 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
21 Jul
2026
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
153MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

21

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
28km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 22 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Rio Blanco where it started
    971 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.1 %
  2. Moffat
    261 ha reached on 21 Jul
    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)
21 Jul 34.5 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 50
22 Jul after 30.8 °C 25 % 25 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2026
After · 28 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 23 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1012 µg/m³
Optical depth0.35
192021222324
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 · 12Every 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 Keystone fire last?
It burned between 21 July 2026 and 21 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 1,231 hectares (12.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Rio Blanco (971 ha, 0.1 %); Moffat (261 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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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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.