How long did the Modrite fire last?

It burned between 17 July 2026 and 17 July 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 23,312 hectares (233.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Ferry (23,284 ha, 4.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 13 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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.

US · United States · 2026-07-17 → 2026-07-17

Modrite Fire, July 2026 Ferry

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2026, 20:34 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2026 in Ferry, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 23,312 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 17th largest in Washington since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 23 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Burnt area: 23,312ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 17 Jul 2026 – 17 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 17 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 523; in a single hotspot: 654 MW
Danger at start: 17; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 2.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 18 Jul 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul17 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1718

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

13km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 799 ha in 2016, 4,424 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,553 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Ferry where it started

23,284 ha reached on 17 Jul

4.0 %

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)
17 Jul	31.5 °C	17 %	13 km/h	1.7 mm	Moderate 17
18 Jul after	28.5 °C	16 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
19 Jul after	30.1 °C	16 %	14 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Jul after	30.2 °C	19 %	8 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Jul after	35.7 °C	15 %	8 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Jul after	36.3 °C	14 %	11 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
23 Jul after	36.3 °C	15 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Jul after	33.2 °C	19 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
25 Jul after	31.1 °C	16 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
26 Jul after	27.6 °C	20 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
27 Jul after	28.9 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Jul 2026

After · 24 Jul 2026

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 22 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 557 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 378: 25 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak557 µg/m³

Days over the guideline8 days

PM10572 µg/m³

Optical depth3.48

WHO 15

151617181920212223242526

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 · 523Every 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 Modrite fire last?: It burned between 17 July 2026 and 17 July 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 23,312 hectares (233.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Ferry (23,284 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 13 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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

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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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