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S Fire, July 2016 Washoe

Out · last detection 6 Jul 2016, 22:02 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2016 in Washoe, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,078 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 149th largest in Nevada since 2016 (of 237 with a page). Number 252 in United States in 2016, of 475.

Burnt area
1,078ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
6 Jul 2016 – 6 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
6 Jul
2016
Heat detections
29
in a single hotspot: 276 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

6

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
54km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 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. Washoe where it started
    1,058 ha reached on 6 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
6 Jul 29.5 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Jul after 30.0 °C 13 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Jul after 27.9 °C 12 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Jul after 26.0 °C 22 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Jul after 23.2 °C 10 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jul after 26.8 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jul after 29.0 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Jul after 32.1 °C 7 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jul after 33.8 °C 6 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Jul after 32.4 °C 7 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
16 Jul after 30.8 °C 8 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jun 2016
After · 13 Jul 2016

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 · 29Every 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 S Fire fire last?
It burned between 6 July 2016 and 6 July 2016: 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 1,078 hectares (10.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Washoe (1,058 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 54 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.

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.