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Rodgers Fire, August 2022 Tuolumne

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2022, 09:50 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2022 in Tuolumne, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 41 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,276 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 251th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 266 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Wolf · 2020Tiltill · 2021Red · 2022Empire · 2017

Burnt area
1,276ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 41days
8 Aug 2022 – 17 Sept 2022
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
8 Aug
2022
Heat detections
566
in a single hotspot: 159 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
126MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug17 Sept
17 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

12 Aug 2022 · 1 MW · 1 14 Aug 2022 · 3 MW · 3 15 Aug 2022 · 14 MW · 5 16 Aug 2022 · 13 MW · 4 17 Aug 2022 · 7 MW · 3 20 Aug 2022 · 1 MW · 1 21 Aug 2022 · 52 MW · 7 22 Aug 2022 · 257 MW · 19 23 Aug 2022 · 250 MW · 23 24 Aug 2022 · 329 MW · 45 25 Aug 2022 · 260 MW · 63 26 Aug 2022 · 185 MW · 38 27 Aug 2022 · 425 MW · 48 28 Aug 2022 · 86 MW · 21 29 Aug 2022 · 15 MW · 7 30 Aug 2022 · 50 MW · 6 31 Aug 2022 · 128 MW · 12 1 Sept 2022 · 89 MW · 24 2 Sept 2022 · 78 MW · 16 3 Sept 2022 · 138 MW · 15 4 Sept 2022 · 467 MW · 40 5 Sept 2022 · 68 MW · 25 6 Sept 2022 · 301 MW · 33 7 Sept 2022 · 87 MW · 35 8 Sept 2022 · 170 MW · 47 9 Sept 2022 · 47 MW · 23 10 Sept 2022 · 1 MW · 1 17 Sept 2022 · 1 MW · 1
12 Aug 17 Aug 23 Aug 27 Aug 31 Aug 4 Sept 8 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
57km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 19 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (13 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each county

  1. Tuolumne where it started
    1,278 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
8 Aug 20.2 °C 38 % 43 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 2
9 Aug 19.0 °C 48 % 51 km/h 0.2 mm Low 6
10 Aug 19.2 °C 47 % 52 km/h 0.5 mm Low 8
11 Aug 21.6 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Aug 22.1 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
13 Aug 21.8 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
14 Aug 22.9 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Aug 23.9 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
16 Aug 22.9 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
17 Aug 20.7 °C 38 % 27 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 4
18 Aug 21.6 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
19 Aug 23.7 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Aug 24.5 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
21 Aug 24.1 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Aug 24.4 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Aug 24.9 °C 15 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Aug 24.2 °C 17 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Aug 23.5 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
26 Aug 22.2 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Aug 21.7 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug 23.4 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Aug 23.6 °C 29 % 40 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 14
30 Aug 24.7 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Aug 25.1 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Sept 26.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Sept 25.6 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Sept 25.5 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Sept 25.8 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
5 Sept 26.7 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Sept 27.5 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
7 Sept 26.8 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
8 Sept 25.2 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
9 Sept 24.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
10 Sept 20.2 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
11 Sept 19.0 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
12 Sept 16.5 °C 47 % 36 km/h 9.2 mm Very low 1
13 Sept 15.7 °C 43 % 49 km/h 0.7 mm Low 6
14 Sept 14.7 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
15 Sept 14.0 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
16 Sept 15.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Sept 12.8 °C 31 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
18 Sept after 10.8 °C 35 % 81 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
19 Sept after 9.9 °C 57 % 56 km/h 5.2 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2022
After · 24 Sept 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 7 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 6 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak6 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM109 µg/m³
Optical depth0.14
67891011
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 · 566Every 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 Rodgers Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (8 August 2022). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 17 September 2022 (41 days from 8 August 2022), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 1,276 hectares (12.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Tuolumne (1,278 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

Report an error
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 566 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.