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US · United States · –

Rosie Fire, September 2024 Owyhee

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2024, 21:30 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2024 in Owyhee, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,355 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 123th largest in Idaho since 2016 (of 379 with a page). Number 135 in United States in 2024, of 371.

Burnt area
2,355ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 8days
30 Sept 2024 – 7 Oct 2024
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
30 Sept
2024
Heat detections
400
in a single hotspot: 289 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.7GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept7 Oct
7 Oct 2024

How it evolved, day by day

1 Oct 2024 · 5,214 MW · 90 2 Oct 2024 · 2,061 MW · 139 3 Oct 2024 · 104 MW · 21 4 Oct 2024 · 2,770 MW · 64 5 Oct 2024 · 111 MW · 42 6 Oct 2024 · 362 MW · 16 7 Oct 2024 · 1,498 MW · 28
1 Oct 3 Oct 5 Oct 7 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
72km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.3 mm on 16 Oct.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 315 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.5% of the area of London (24 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. Owyhee where it started
    2,351 ha reached on 1 Oct
    0.1 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.60 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.60 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with Very dry air: 40 % of the area in United States

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
30 Sept 17.3 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Oct 24.6 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Oct 22.9 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Oct 23.4 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Oct 26.2 °C 10 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Oct 21.4 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Oct 24.1 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Oct 26.0 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Oct after 25.8 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Oct after 24.8 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Oct after 20.8 °C 23 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Oct after 22.8 °C 15 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Oct after 20.7 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Oct after 21.9 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
14 Oct after 23.5 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Oct after 24.1 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Oct after 15.1 °C 43 % 43 km/h 8.3 mm Very low 4

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 30.8, a minimum humidity of 10% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 42.

FWI at the start 30.8
Minimum humidity 10 %
Days without rain 12
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Hunter Fire, October 2019
628 ha 1 day FWI 26.9 Min. humidity 11 % 209 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.3 mm on 19 Oct.

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
833 ha
median area
40 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 42 had it)

It was 2.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 8 days, against 1 day.

Only 9 of its 42 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 21 of 42, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

8.3 mmfirst rain
16 Oct9 days after it ended
72km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 7 Oct, and on 16 Oct 8.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 42, with a median of 4.1 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2024
After · 14 Oct 2024

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 2 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1064 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
28 Sept1 Oct4 Oct7 Oct10 Oct
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 · 400Every 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 Rosie Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (30 September 2024). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 7 October 2024 (8 days from 30 September 2024), 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 2,355 hectares (23.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Owyhee (2,351 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 42. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 833 ha; 40 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 9 of its 42 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 21 of 42, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 mm.

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.

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
What do you think is wrong?

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. 400 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.