Numbers Fire, July 2020 Douglas
The fire started on 7 July 2020 in Douglas, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 7,612 hectares, spread across a single county.
It is the 35th largest in Nevada since 2016 (of 237 with a page). Number 82 in United States in 2020, of 441.
- Burnt area
- 7,612ha
- official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
- Duration
- 7days
- 7 Jul 2020 – 13 Jul 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 7 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 535
- in a single hotspot: 348 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 5.7GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 17 Jul.
This area had burned before
33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,534 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
Douglas where it started7,609 ha reached on 7 Jul4.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Jul | 28.1 °C | 8 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Jul | 29.3 °C | 8 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 9 Jul | 29.6 °C | 10 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 10 Jul | 32.1 °C | 5 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 11 Jul | 32.1 °C | 7 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 12 Jul | 32.8 °C | 9 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 13 Jul | 32.1 °C | 9 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 14 Jul after | 31.3 °C | 12 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 16 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 9 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 17 Jul after | 31.2 °C | 18 % | 47 km/h | 1.4 mm | High 34 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 535Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,159 haPreacher DouglasJuly 2017 · 2 days · 2 km away
- 962 haMonarch DouglasJune 2020 · 2 days · 3 km away
- 1,647 haCutter DouglasOctober 2017 · 2 days · 5 km away
- 7,169 haConner DouglasJune 2025 · 2 days · 6 km away
- 28,922 haTamarack AlpineJuly 2021 · 44 days · 18 km away
- 3,573 haSlinkard MonoAugust 2017 · 5 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Numbers fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 July 2020 to 13 July 2020 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 July 2020 to 7 July 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 7,612 hectares (76.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
- Which counties burned?
- The fire only entered Douglas (7,609 ha, 4.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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
- NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center ↗
- InciWeb · Incident Information System ↗
- MTBS · Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity ↗
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 July 2020 to 7 July 2020. 535 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.
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.