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March Fire, March 2026 Powder River

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2026, 09:35 UTC

The fire started on 20 March 2026 in Powder River, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 918 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 193th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 276 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Burnt area
918ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
20 Mar 2026 – 20 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
20 Mar
2026
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 310 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Mar 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Mar20 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2021

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
60km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 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. Powder River where it started
    910 ha reached on 20 Mar
    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)
20 Mar 25.3 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Mar after 24.0 °C 21 % 60 km/h 1.0 mm High 22
22 Mar after 11.1 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm Low 9
23 Mar after 16.3 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
24 Mar after 19.3 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
25 Mar after 23.1 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Mar after 8.3 °C 54 % 44 km/h 0.9 mm Low 7
27 Mar after 11.9 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
28 Mar after 21.1 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Mar after 19.1 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Mar after 13.6 °C 41 % 55 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
31 Mar after 6.6 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Mar 2026
After · 27 Mar 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 21 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.31
18192021222324
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 · 23Every 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 March fire last?
It burned between 20 March 2026 and 20 March 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 918 hectares (9.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Powder River (910 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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

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.