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Mountaineer Fire, October 2018 Tulare

Out · last detection 21 Nov 2018, 20:45 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2018 in Tulare, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 531 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 390th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 449 in United States in 2018, of 511.

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Burnt area
531ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 40days
13 Oct 2018 – 21 Nov 2018
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
13 Oct
2018
Heat detections
342
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
67MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct21 Nov
21 Nov 2018

How it evolved, day by day

20 Oct 2018 · 1 MW · 1 24 Oct 2018 · 2 MW · 1 25 Oct 2018 · 14 MW · 4 26 Oct 2018 · 18 MW · 3 27 Oct 2018 · 3 MW · 1 28 Oct 2018 · 22 MW · 4 29 Oct 2018 · 7 MW · 4 30 Oct 2018 · 45 MW · 8 31 Oct 2018 · 15 MW · 6 2 Nov 2018 · 14 MW · 1 3 Nov 2018 · 81 MW · 8 4 Nov 2018 · 65 MW · 17 5 Nov 2018 · 123 MW · 15 6 Nov 2018 · 91 MW · 19 7 Nov 2018 · 87 MW · 24 8 Nov 2018 · 449 MW · 25 9 Nov 2018 · 258 MW · 39 10 Nov 2018 · 254 MW · 42 11 Nov 2018 · 61 MW · 17 12 Nov 2018 · 31 MW · 16 13 Nov 2018 · 43 MW · 14 14 Nov 2018 · 50 MW · 20 15 Nov 2018 · 52 MW · 21 16 Nov 2018 · 9 MW · 7 18 Nov 2018 · 8 MW · 4 19 Nov 2018 · 4 MW · 3 20 Nov 2018 · 34 MW · 12 21 Nov 2018 · 21 MW · 6
20 Oct 27 Oct 31 Oct 5 Nov 8 Nov 9 Nov 13 Nov 18 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

20°high
45km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.5 mm on 22 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.3% of the area of London (5.3 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 county

  1. Tulare where it started
    533 ha reached on 20 Oct
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
13 Oct 14.3 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
14 Oct 14.2 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
15 Oct 12.5 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Oct 13.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Oct 13.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Oct 14.3 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Oct 15.3 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
20 Oct 14.8 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
21 Oct 12.6 °C 28 % 23 km/h 5.9 mm Very low 1
22 Oct 13.1 °C 31 % 27 km/h 2.0 mm Very low 1
23 Oct 13.4 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
24 Oct 15.4 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
25 Oct 16.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
26 Oct 18.9 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
27 Oct 19.7 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Oct 18.0 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Oct 14.1 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
30 Oct 11.0 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
31 Oct 12.7 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
1 Nov 14.7 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
2 Nov 16.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Nov 16.1 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Nov 17.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
5 Nov 17.0 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
6 Nov 14.7 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Nov 14.1 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 Nov 10.2 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Nov 11.4 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
10 Nov 9.9 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
11 Nov 8.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Nov 10.6 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Nov 10.4 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Nov 11.6 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Nov 11.9 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Nov 11.2 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Nov 10.6 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
18 Nov 10.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Nov 9.0 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Nov 10.5 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Nov 9.0 °C 13 % 39 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 12
22 Nov after 3.7 °C 52 % 59 km/h 8.5 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Oct 2018
After · 28 Nov 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.

Detections table · 342Every 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 Mountaineer Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (13 October 2018). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 21 November 2018 (40 days from 13 October 2018), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 531 hectares (5.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Tulare (533 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 19.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
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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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 342 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.