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Monte Fire, June 2025 San Diego

Out · last detection 18 Jun 2025, 20:27 UTC

The fire started on 17 June 2025 in San Diego, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 425 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 429th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 316 in United States in 2025, of 327.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
425ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
17 Jun 2025 – 17 Jun 2025
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
17 Jun
2025
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
94MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jun17 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

18

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 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. San Diego where it started
    425 ha reached on 18 Jun
    0.0 %

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 Jun 31.4 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Jun after 31.1 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jun after 27.9 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jun after 26.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jun after 22.8 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Jun after 25.2 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jun after 23.5 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jun after 23.8 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Jun after 27.1 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jun after 27.7 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jun after 28.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Jun after 30.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jun 2025
After · 24 Jun 2025

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 15 June 2025 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.13
151617181920
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 · 8Every 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 Monte fire last?
It burned between 17 June 2025 and 17 June 2025: 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 425 hectares (4.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered San Diego (425 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.