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Red Fire, August 2022 Mariposa, Madera

Out · last measured on 4 Aug 2022

The fire started on 4 August 2022 in Mariposa, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,443 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 156th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 135 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Burnt area
3,443ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
4 Aug 2022 – 4 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
4 Aug
2022
Heat detections
1,573
in a single hotspot: 428 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug4 Aug

The weather it burned in

30°high
55km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.6 mm on 19 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mariposa where it started
    3,122 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.8 %
  2. Madera
    319 ha reached on 13 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)
4 Aug 24.3 °C 44 % 33 km/h 6.5 mm Very low 2
5 Aug after 16.7 °C 76 % 24 km/h 16.2 mm Very low 0
6 Aug after 22.4 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 1
7 Aug after 24.4 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
8 Aug after 22.7 °C 35 % 42 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 2
9 Aug after 21.7 °C 44 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Low 8
10 Aug after 21.8 °C 44 % 51 km/h 0.5 mm Low 10
11 Aug after 24.1 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
12 Aug after 24.5 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Aug after 24.5 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Aug after 25.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Aug after 26.3 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Aug after 26.1 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 17
17 Aug after 24.1 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 13
18 Aug after 24.6 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Aug after 26.1 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Aug after 26.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Aug after 26.4 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Aug after 26.7 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Aug after 27.6 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug after 27.1 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
25 Aug after 26.1 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
26 Aug after 25.0 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Aug after 24.4 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug after 25.3 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Aug after 25.6 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
30 Aug after 27.0 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug after 27.7 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Sept after 28.7 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept after 28.6 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept after 28.4 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Sept after 28.9 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
5 Sept after 29.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept after 30.5 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
7 Sept after 29.3 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
8 Sept after 28.1 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept after 27.1 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept after 22.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 1.9 mm Low 10
11 Sept after 20.1 °C 48 % 27 km/h 2.3 mm Very low 5
12 Sept after 19.9 °C 48 % 38 km/h 6.6 mm Very low 1
13 Sept after 18.4 °C 40 % 47 km/h 0.7 mm Low 6
14 Sept after 16.9 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
15 Sept after 16.1 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
16 Sept after 18.1 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
17 Sept after 15.3 °C 33 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Sept after 12.8 °C 36 % 77 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
19 Sept after 12.1 °C 57 % 58 km/h 5.6 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2022
After · 11 Aug 2022

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 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.37
4567
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 · 1,573Every 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 Red fire last?
It burned between 4 August 2022 and 4 August 2022: 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 3,443 hectares (34.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Mariposa (3,122 ha, 0.8 %); Madera (319 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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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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.