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Mauer Mountain Fire, August 2017 Beaverhead

Out · last measured on 23 Aug 2017

The fire started on 23 August 2017 in Beaverhead, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,144 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 166th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 358 in United States in 2017, of 619.

We have the official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC) for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by county is there.

Burnt area
1,144ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
23 Aug 2017 – 23 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
23 Aug
2017
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

25°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 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. Beaverhead where it started
    1,134 ha
    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)
23 Aug 24.9 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug after 24.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm High 22
25 Aug after 26.3 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Aug after 27.5 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Aug after 29.3 °C 8 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug after 29.1 °C 6 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug after 28.7 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug after 26.2 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
31 Aug after 26.1 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept after 26.6 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept after 30.6 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2017
After · 30 Aug 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.

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mauer Mountain fire last?
It burned between 23 August 2017 and 23 August 2017: 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 1,144 hectares (11.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Beaverhead (1,134 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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.