How long did the Line fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 September 2024 to 13 September 2024 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 September 2024 to 6 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 18,199 hectares (182.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered San Bernardino (18,115 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.

US · United States · 2024-09-06 → 2024-09-13

Line Fire, September 2024 San Bernardino

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2024, 20:38 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2024 in San Bernardino, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 18,199 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 62th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 28 in United States in 2024, of 371.

Burnt area: 18,199ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 8days; 6 Sept 2024 – 13 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 6 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 1,168; in a single hotspot: 782 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 5.0GW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 13 Sept 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6 Sept 8 Sept 10 Sept 12 Sept

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

59km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2020.

1 ha El Dorado fire, September 2020 9,019 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

San Bernardino where it started

18,115 ha reached on 6 Sept

0.4 %

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)
6 Sept	37.6 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
7 Sept	35.8 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
8 Sept	34.5 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 44
9 Sept	33.0 °C	15 %	25 km/h	1.3 mm	High 30
10 Sept	32.2 °C	14 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
11 Sept	29.3 °C	15 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
12 Sept	28.6 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Sept	30.0 °C	19 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Sept after	29.1 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Sept after	25.4 °C	26 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Sept after	18.9 °C	38 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Sept after	22.6 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Sept after	24.0 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
19 Sept after	22.9 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.4 mm	High 30
20 Sept after	20.7 °C	33 %	35 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Aug 2024

After · 20 Sept 2024

Before After

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 10 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 141 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 92: 6.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak141 µg/m³

Days over the guideline8 days

PM10202 µg/m³

Optical depth1.77

WHO 15

45678910111213141516

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 · 1,168Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Line fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 September 2024 to 13 September 2024 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 September 2024 to 6 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 18,199 hectares (182.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered San Bernardino (18,115 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned