How long did the Pickett fire last?

It burned between 21 August 2025 and 21 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 2,760 hectares (27.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Napa (2,802 ha, 1.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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.

US · United States · 2025-08-21 → 2025-08-21

Pickett Fire, August 2025 Napa

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2025, 21:51 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2025 in Napa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,760 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 178th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 113 in United States in 2025, of 327.

Burnt area: 2,760ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 21 Aug 2025 – 21 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 21 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 268; in a single hotspot: 309 MW
Danger at start: 46; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug21 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

37°high

33km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 94 ha in 2020.

94 ha Hennessey fire, August 2020 127,077 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Napa where it started

2,802 ha reached on 22 Aug

1.4 %

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)
21 Aug	37.1 °C	14 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Aug after	34.8 °C	18 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
23 Aug after	35.0 °C	20 %	33 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 47
24 Aug after	33.5 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Aug after	33.9 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
26 Aug after	31.0 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
27 Aug after	29.5 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Aug after	31.9 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Aug after	32.5 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
30 Aug after	35.5 °C	9 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
31 Aug after	35.4 °C	7 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
1 Sept after	36.4 °C	8 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
2 Sept after	34.4 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 48
3 Sept after	31.7 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Sept after	29.5 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Aug 2025

After · 28 Aug 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 24 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1064 µg/m³

Optical depth0.37

WHO 15

192021222324

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 · 268Every 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 Pickett fire last?: It burned between 21 August 2025 and 21 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 2,760 hectares (27.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Napa (2,802 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned