How long did the Perry fire last?

It burned between 28 August 2025 and 28 August 2025: 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 717 hectares (7.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Whatcom (717 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.

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.

US · United States · 2025-08-28 → 2025-08-28

Perry Fire, August 2025 Whatcom

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2025, 21:22 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2025 in Whatcom, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 717 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 241th largest in Washington since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 257 in United States in 2025, of 327.

Burnt area: 717ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 28 Aug 2025 – 28 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 28 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 172; in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start: 2; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 512MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug28 Aug

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

30°high

36km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 14 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Whatcom where it started

717 ha reached on 29 Aug

0.1 %

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 Aug	22.2 °C	50 %	23 km/h	3.2 mm	Very low 2
29 Aug after	23.5 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 7
30 Aug after	21.6 °C	42 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
31 Aug after	23.4 °C	38 %	27 km/h	1.1 mm	Low 6
1 Sept after	26.3 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
2 Sept after	29.9 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
3 Sept after	29.4 °C	29 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
4 Sept after	26.4 °C	31 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
5 Sept after	25.9 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
6 Sept after	20.9 °C	62 %	23 km/h	2.1 mm	Very low 3
7 Sept after	19.2 °C	57 %	34 km/h	1.0 mm	Very low 4
8 Sept after	21.6 °C	45 %	28 km/h	2.4 mm	Very low 3
9 Sept after	18.2 °C	60 %	29 km/h	4.0 mm	Very low 0
10 Sept after	22.5 °C	42 %	23 km/h	0.4 mm	Very low 3
11 Sept after	21.5 °C	46 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 7
12 Sept after	20.6 °C	43 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
13 Sept after	21.9 °C	38 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
14 Sept after	13.6 °C	61 %	29 km/h	4.4 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Aug 2025

After · 4 Sept 2025

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 131 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 93: 6.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak131 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10135 µg/m³

Optical depth1.62

WHO 15

2627282930311234567

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 172Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Perry fire last?: It burned between 28 August 2025 and 28 August 2025: 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 717 hectares (7.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Whatcom (717 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned