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Rye Fire, December 2017 Los Angeles, Ventura

Out · last detection 6 Dec 2017, 20:07 UTC

The fire started on 5 December 2017 in Los Angeles, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,981 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 210th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 261 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Burnt area
1,981ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
5 Dec 2017 – 5 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
5 Dec
2017
Heat detections
33
in a single hotspot: 357 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Dec5 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

56

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
76km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Los Angeles where it started
    1,998 ha reached on 5 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Ventura
    2 ha
    0.0 %

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)
5 Dec 17.7 °C 10 % 76 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Dec after 21.4 °C 10 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Dec after 22.0 °C 9 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Dec after 24.2 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Dec after 24.3 °C 9 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Dec after 23.3 °C 7 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Dec after 24.5 °C 4 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Dec after 25.4 °C 3 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Dec after 28.0 °C 4 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Dec after 24.5 °C 6 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Dec after 26.4 °C 7 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Dec after 20.4 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Nov 2017
After · 12 Dec 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 · 33Every 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 Rye fire last?
It burned between 5 December 2017 and 5 December 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 1,981 hectares (19.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Los Angeles (1,998 ha, 0.2 %); Ventura (2 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 21.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 76 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.