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Pass Fire, June 2020 Merced

Out · last detection 29 Jun 2020, 09:36 UTC

The fire started on 28 June 2020 in Merced, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 910 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 305th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 291 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
910ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
28 Jun 2020 – 28 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Jun
2020
Heat detections
31
in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
569MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jun 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jun28 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

2829

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
60km/h · peak gust
30%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. Merced where it started
    909 ha reached on 28 Jun
    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 19.6 °C 45 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jun after 25.9 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jun after 29.0 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jul after 27.5 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Jul after 24.6 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Jul after 26.5 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Jul after 30.9 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Jul after 29.4 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jul after 24.9 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Jul after 25.9 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Jul after 29.3 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Jul after 29.6 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jun 2020
After · 5 Jul 2020

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 · 31Every 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 Pass fire last?
It burned between 28 June 2020 and 28 June 2020: 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 910 hectares (9.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Merced (909 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.9 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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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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.