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Montecito Fire, June 2018 Benton

Out · last measured on 28 Jun 2018

The fire started on 28 June 2018 in Benton, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 761 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 230th largest in Washington since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 384 in United States in 2018, of 511.

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
761ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
28 Jun 2018 – 28 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Jun
2018
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

27°high
45km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 306 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Benton where it started
    757 ha
    0.2 %

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)
28 Jun 26.8 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Jun after 29.1 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Jun after 31.0 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Jul after 30.0 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Jul after 24.3 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Jul after 26.2 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Jul after 30.7 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Jul after 36.4 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
6 Jul after 32.0 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 66
7 Jul after 30.5 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Jul after 33.6 °C 9 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jun 2018
After · 5 Jul 2018

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 Montecito fire last?
It burned between 28 June 2018 and 28 June 2018: 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 761 hectares (7.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Benton (757 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 45 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

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.