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Range 39 Fire, August 2026 Perry, Forrest

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2026, 19:32 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2026 in Perry, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,019 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 10th largest in Mississippi since 2016 (of 23 with a page). Number 260 in United States in 2026, of 423.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.9 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
1,019ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
5 Aug 2026 – 5 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
5 Aug
2026
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
5MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

56

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
20km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 17.2 mm on 6 Aug.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2017, 128 ha in 2018, 413 ha in 2020, 41 ha in 2021, 225 ha in 2022, 877 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 898 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Perry where it started
    868 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.5 %
  2. Forrest
    164 ha reached on 12 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)
5 Aug 37.0 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Aug after 37.5 °C 30 % 30 km/h 17.2 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2026
After · 12 Aug 2026

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 6 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1040 µg/m³
Optical depth0.50
3456789101112131415
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 · 3Every 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 Range 39 fire last?
It burned between 5 August 2026 and 5 August 2026: 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 1,019 hectares (10.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Perry (868 ha, 0.5 %); Forrest (164 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 20 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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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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.