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Mill Creek Fire, August 2016 Pershing

Out · last measured on 17 Aug 2016

The fire started on 17 August 2016 in Pershing, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 885 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 166th largest in Nevada since 2016 (of 237 with a page). Number 294 in United States in 2016, of 475.

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
885ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
17 Aug 2016 – 17 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
17 Aug
2016
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

36°high
23km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Pershing where it started
    890 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)
17 Aug 35.7 °C 9 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Aug after 35.7 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Aug after 36.1 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Aug after 37.2 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Aug after 36.7 °C 3 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
22 Aug after 32.7 °C 8 % 56 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 68
23 Aug after 32.8 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
24 Aug after 31.2 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Aug after 29.3 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Aug after 31.2 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Aug after 33.1 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2016
After · 24 Aug 2016

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 Mill Creek fire last?
It burned between 17 August 2016 and 17 August 2016: 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 885 hectares (8.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Pershing (890 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

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.