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Kincade Fire, October 2019 Sonoma, Lake

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2019, 22:08 UTC

The fire started on 23 October 2019 in Sonoma, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 31,454 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 40th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 12 in United States in 2019, of 367.

Burnt area
31,454ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
23 Oct 2019 – 23 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
23 Oct
2019
Heat detections
1,799
in a single hotspot: 1,670 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
13.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

24

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
94km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2016, 3,503 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Sonoma where it started
    31,347 ha reached on 24 Oct
    7.6 %
  2. Lake
    269 ha reached on 27 Oct
    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)
23 Oct 28.4 °C 10 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Oct after 29.9 °C 10 % 83 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
25 Oct after 31.2 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Oct after 27.4 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Oct after 16.7 °C 15 % 94 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
28 Oct after 20.2 °C 11 % 74 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Oct after 19.6 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Oct after 19.1 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Oct after 21.4 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Nov after 23.5 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Nov after 25.2 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Nov after 24.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Nov after 25.6 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Nov after 25.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Nov after 23.2 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Nov after 25.1 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Nov after 24.2 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Nov after 23.1 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Oct 2019
After · 30 Oct 2019

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 · 1,799Every 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 Kincade fire last?
It burned between 23 October 2019 and 23 October 2019: 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 31,454 hectares (314.5 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Sonoma (31,347 ha, 7.6 %); Lake (269 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 94 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.