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Rosebud fire, August 2017 Rosebud

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2017, 20:41 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2017 in Rosebud, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,392 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 68th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 187 in United States in 2017, of 619.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.4 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
3,392ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
24 Aug 2017 – 24 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
24 Aug
2017
Heat detections
57
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
398MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

25

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
55km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Rosebud where it started
    3,396 ha reached on 25 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
24 Aug 35.4 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
25 Aug after 31.1 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
26 Aug after 31.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Aug after 33.1 °C 8 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Aug after 35.4 °C 8 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Aug after 34.8 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 61
30 Aug after 34.9 °C 17 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
31 Aug after 31.9 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 58
1 Sept after 28.7 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept after 33.5 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Sept after 32.4 °C 16 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
4 Sept after 21.3 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Sept after 22.4 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept after 28.1 °C 9 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept after 29.8 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept after 32.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
9 Sept after 34.6 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Sept after 31.5 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2017
After · 31 Aug 2017

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 · 57Every 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 Rosebud fire last?
It burned between 24 August 2017 and 24 August 2017: 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 3,392 hectares (33.9 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Rosebud (3,396 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very extreme.
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.