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Palouse Falls Fire, August 2016 Franklin, Adams, Whitman

Out · last measured on 8 Aug 2016

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Whitman, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,146 hectares, spread across 3 counties.

It is the 133th largest in Washington since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 154 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area
2,146ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
8 Aug 2016 – 8 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
8 Aug
2016
Heat detections
17
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
63
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug8 Aug

The weather it burned in

29°high
51km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 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. Franklin
    1,563 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.5 %
  2. Adams
    583 ha
    0.1 %
  3. Whitman where it started
    1 ha
    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)
7 Aug 29.4 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 63
8 Aug 25.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
9 Aug after 24.2 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
10 Aug after 28.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug after 33.1 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug after 35.8 °C 14 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug after 36.5 °C 10 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug after 37.2 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Aug after 36.2 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Aug after 36.8 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Aug after 36.5 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Aug after 37.7 °C 8 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2016
After · 15 Aug 2016

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 · 17Every 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 Palouse Falls fire last?
It burned between 8 August 2016 and 8 August 2016: 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 2,146 hectares (21.5 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 3 counties: Franklin (1,563 ha, 0.5 %); Adams (583 ha, 0.1 %); Whitman (1 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.

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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.