How long did the Mcmean fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2020 to 22 August 2020 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2020 to 16 August 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 972 hectares (9.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Sutton (976 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

US · United States · 2020-08-16 → 2020-08-22

Mcmean Fire, August 2020 Sutton

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2020, 19:02 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2020 in Sutton, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 972 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 179th largest in Texas since 2016 (of 327 with a page). Number 278 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cusenbarry Draw · 2026 Dry River · 2026 Arroyo Grande · 2020

Burnt area: 972ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 7days; 16 Aug 2020 – 22 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 16 Aug; 2020
Heat detections: 29; in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 76MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug22 Aug

Play back 22 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

16 Aug 17 Aug 22 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

48km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (9.7 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Sutton where it started

976 ha reached on 16 Aug

0.3 %

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)
16 Aug	37.0 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 41
17 Aug	32.9 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.9 mm	High 30
18 Aug	35.4 °C	28 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug	35.9 °C	25 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
20 Aug	35.9 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 56
21 Aug	36.4 °C	29 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
22 Aug	33.6 °C	32 %	48 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 50
23 Aug after	35.0 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 47
24 Aug after	32.7 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Aug after	34.9 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Aug after	36.0 °C	26 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Aug after	36.0 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
28 Aug after	37.6 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Aug after	38.2 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
30 Aug after	37.3 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
31 Aug after	37.9 °C	28 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
1 Sept after	37.8 °C	26 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Aug 2020

After · 29 Aug 2020

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mcmean fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2020 to 22 August 2020 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2020 to 16 August 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 972 hectares (9.7 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Sutton (976 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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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What do you think is wrong?

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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 August 2020 to 16 August 2020. 29 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned