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Mcghee Fire, July 2024 Rosebud

Out · last measured on 12 Jul 2024

The fire started on 12 July 2024 in Rosebud, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 7,751 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 39th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 56 in United States in 2024, of 371.

Burnt area
7,751ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
12 Jul 2024 – 12 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Jul
2024
Heat detections
494
in a single hotspot: 176 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul12 Jul

The weather it burned in

37°high
36km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 28 Jul.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 209 ha in 2016, 304 ha in 2019, 123 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Rosebud where it started
    7,643 ha reached on 7 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
7 Jul 24.1 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
8 Jul 30.4 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Jul 31.6 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jul 35.6 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Jul 36.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Jul 36.0 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jul after 34.4 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.6 mm High 35
14 Jul after 36.8 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 39
15 Jul after 31.5 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Jul after 30.7 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 39
17 Jul after 32.6 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jul after 34.3 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jul after 32.8 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
20 Jul after 30.4 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
21 Jul after 31.4 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Jul after 32.6 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul after 35.9 °C 11 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul after 39.2 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Jul after 37.7 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 64
26 Jul after 27.9 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Jul after 30.5 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
28 Jul after 27.4 °C 24 % 33 km/h 1.1 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2024
After · 19 Jul 2024

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 14 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 67 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak67 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1097 µg/m³
Optical depth1.05
101112131415
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 · 494Every 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 Mcghee fire last?
It burned between 12 July 2024 and 12 July 2024: 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 7,751 hectares (77.5 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Rosebud (7,643 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.