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Lost Fire, June 2026 Kern

Out · last detection 19 Jun 2026, 09:54 UTC

The fire started on 18 June 2026 in Kern, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,167 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 165th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 129 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Burnt area
3,167ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
18 Jun 2026 – 18 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
18 Jun
2026
Heat detections
29
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
343MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jun18 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1819

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
53km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Kern where it started
    3,159 ha reached on 18 Jun
    0.2 %

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)
18 Jun 32.4 °C 19 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Jun after 29.8 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Jun after 30.7 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jun after 33.3 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jun after 34.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jun after 35.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jun after 33.5 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jun after 33.5 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Jun after 31.3 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Jun after 30.1 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Jun after 29.3 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Jun after 28.2 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jun 2026
After · 25 Jun 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 20 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10404 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
16171819202122
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 · 29Every 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 Lost fire last?
It burned between 18 June 2026 and 18 June 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 3,167 hectares (31.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Kern (3,159 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.