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Lion Fire, September 2017 Tulare

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2017, 09:38 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2017 in Tulare, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 7,514 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 106th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 103 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Walkers · 2021Castle · 2020Alder · 2018Rattlesnake · 2020

Burnt area
7,514ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 33days
25 Sept 2017 – 27 Oct 2017
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
25 Sept
2017
Heat detections
2,082
in a single hotspot: 147 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
707MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept27 Oct
27 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

25 Sept 2017 · 20 MW · 3 26 Sept 2017 · 59 MW · 5 27 Sept 2017 · 52 MW · 6 28 Sept 2017 · 208 MW · 12 29 Sept 2017 · 5 MW · 2 30 Sept 2017 · 54 MW · 6 1 Oct 2017 · 61 MW · 10 2 Oct 2017 · 145 MW · 35 3 Oct 2017 · 801 MW · 105 4 Oct 2017 · 2,167 MW · 184 5 Oct 2017 · 699 MW · 148 6 Oct 2017 · 1,574 MW · 163 7 Oct 2017 · 1,460 MW · 186 8 Oct 2017 · 2,139 MW · 241 9 Oct 2017 · 1,589 MW · 126 10 Oct 2017 · 1,734 MW · 113 11 Oct 2017 · 1,397 MW · 125 12 Oct 2017 · 1,300 MW · 109 13 Oct 2017 · 1,501 MW · 103 14 Oct 2017 · 1,732 MW · 118 15 Oct 2017 · 2,960 MW · 124 16 Oct 2017 · 747 MW · 92 17 Oct 2017 · 117 MW · 23 19 Oct 2017 · 65 MW · 21 20 Oct 2017 · 21 MW · 9 21 Oct 2017 · 1 MW · 1 22 Oct 2017 · 2 MW · 1 23 Oct 2017 · 7 MW · 3 24 Oct 2017 · 0 MW · 1 25 Oct 2017 · 4 MW · 2 26 Oct 2017 · 2 MW · 2 27 Oct 2017 · 3 MW · 3
25 Sept 30 Sept 5 Oct 10 Oct 15 Oct 21 Oct 26 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
55km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.7% of the area of London (75 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each county

  1. Tulare where it started
    7,517 ha reached on 25 Sept
    0.6 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
25 Sept 14.6 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
26 Sept 13.9 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
27 Sept 16.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
28 Sept 17.4 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Sept 18.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Sept 17.0 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Oct 16.2 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Oct 13.0 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Oct 11.2 °C 17 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Oct 14.6 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Oct 15.9 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Oct 19.5 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Oct 20.1 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Oct 17.2 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Oct 14.7 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Oct 16.4 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Oct 15.2 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Oct 12.8 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Oct 13.8 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Oct 16.5 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Oct 18.1 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Oct 19.1 °C 9 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Oct 18.7 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Oct 16.7 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
19 Oct 15.5 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Oct 7.7 °C 42 % 54 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
21 Oct 12.9 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Oct 17.7 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
23 Oct 21.0 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Oct 21.2 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Oct 20.0 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Oct 19.9 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Oct 19.9 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Oct after 19.5 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Oct after 17.6 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Oct after 15.3 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Oct after 12.4 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Nov after 13.0 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
2 Nov after 9.4 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
3 Nov after 9.2 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
4 Nov after 8.6 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
5 Nov after 7.0 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Nov after 9.9 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Sept 2017
After · 3 Nov 2017

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 · 2,082Every 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 Lion Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (25 September 2017). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 27 October 2017 (33 days from 25 September 2017), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 7,514 hectares (75.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Tulare (7,517 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 21.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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.

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 ›

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

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 2,082 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 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.