Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States · →

Mateo Fire, June 2026 San Diego

Out · last detection 16 Jun 2026, 20:29 UTC

The fire started on 15 June 2026 in San Diego, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 540 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 387th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 365 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Burnt area
540ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
15 Jun 2026 – 15 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
15 Jun
2026
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
199MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jun15 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1516

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
34km/h · peak gust
48%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 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. San Diego where it started
    542 ha reached on 15 Jun
    0.0 %

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)
15 Jun 26.3 °C 53 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
16 Jun after 25.8 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Jun after 24.0 °C 52 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jun after 22.8 °C 60 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
19 Jun after 22.6 °C 54 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Jun after 23.4 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jun after 23.4 °C 50 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Jun after 25.1 °C 51 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Jun after 25.5 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 19
24 Jun after 25.3 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
25 Jun after 25.1 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Jun after 24.1 °C 49 % 35 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 · 8 Jun 2026
After · 22 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 18 June 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
PM1027 µg/m³
Optical depth0.19
13141516171819
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 Mateo fire last?
It burned between 15 June 2026 and 15 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 540 hectares (5.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered San Diego (542 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.