How long did the Prospect fire last?

It burned between 12 August 2024 and 12 August 2024: 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 1,292 hectares (12.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Idaho (1,271 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.

US · United States · 2024-08-12 → 2024-08-12

Prospect Fire, August 2024 Idaho

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2024, 10:37 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2024 in Idaho, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,292 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 187th largest in Idaho since 2016 (of 379 with a page). Number 185 in United States in 2024, of 371.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,292ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 12 Aug 2024 – 12 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 12 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 92; in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 98MW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1213

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

42km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Idaho where it started

1,271 ha reached on 11 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)
11 Aug	29.3 °C	20 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
12 Aug	30.0 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Aug after	24.0 °C	37 %	29 km/h	7.7 mm	Very low 3
14 Aug after	26.3 °C	39 %	27 km/h	1.3 mm	Low 6
15 Aug after	24.4 °C	39 %	29 km/h	2.9 mm	Very low 4
16 Aug after	26.7 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 16
17 Aug after	31.6 °C	23 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
18 Aug after	31.2 °C	31 %	35 km/h	4.8 mm	Very low 5
19 Aug after	30.1 °C	37 %	40 km/h	5.3 mm	Very low 3
20 Aug after	27.7 °C	23 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
21 Aug after	25.0 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 17
22 Aug after	29.5 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
23 Aug after	27.2 °C	28 %	54 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Aug 2024

After · 19 Aug 2024

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 12 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1038 µg/m³

Optical depth0.85

WHO 15

101112131415

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 · 92Every 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 Prospect fire last?: It burned between 12 August 2024 and 12 August 2024: 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 1,292 hectares (12.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Idaho (1,271 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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

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