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River Fire, August 2020 Monterey

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2020, 21:42 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2020 in Monterey, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 23,821 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 49th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 38 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
23,821ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
3days
16 Aug 2020 – 18 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Aug
2020
Heat detections
1,800
in a single hotspot: 571 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
28.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16171819

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
42km/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

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 211 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Monterey where it started
    23,901 ha reached on 16 Aug
    2.8 %

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)
16 Aug 34.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Aug 32.5 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 33.6 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 33.0 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug after 29.1 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug after 28.3 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Aug after 30.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug after 28.9 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Aug after 28.8 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Aug after 25.0 °C 52 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Aug after 26.3 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Aug after 24.0 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Aug after 27.8 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Aug after 25.9 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Aug after 27.4 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug after 26.3 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept after 25.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept after 25.9 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Sept after 27.6 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2020
After · 25 Aug 2020

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

Detections table · 1,800Every 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 River fire last?
It burned between 16 August 2020 and 18 August 2020: 3 days, 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 23,821 hectares (238.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Monterey (23,901 ha, 2.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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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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.