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Santa Rosa fire, November 2026 Santa Rosa, Okaloosa

Burning · last detection 14 Nov 2026, 19:21 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 12 November 2026 in Santa Rosa, United States. It has been active for 3 days, with 30 heat detections and an area with fire of about 406 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 2 counties.

NIFC has not yet published the perimeter of this fire. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 14 Nov 2026, 19:21 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Area with fire
≈ 406ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
3days
12 Nov 2026 – 14 Nov 2026
Counties hit
2
counties
Started on
12 Nov
2026
Heat detections
30
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
151MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Nov14 Nov
14 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

12 Nov 2026 · 41 MW · 5 13 Nov 2026 · 62 MW · 6 14 Nov 2026 · 349 MW · 18
12 Nov 13 Nov 14 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
37km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

What happened to each county

  1. Santa Rosa where it started
    378 ha reached on 12 Nov
    0.1 %
  2. 28 ha reached on 14 Nov
    0.0 %

Area with fire inside each county, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until NIFC publishes the official perimeter. 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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
12 Nov 25.1 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
13 Nov 17.8 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
14 Nov 14.2 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 10.1, a minimum humidity of 39% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 24.

FWI at the start 10.1
Minimum humidity 39 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Wolf Creek Fire, March 2022
452 ha 1 day FWI 9.8 Min. humidity 36 % 4 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 21.3 mm on 31 Mar.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
788 ha
median area
42 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 22 of 24 had it)

It has already lasted 3 days, longer than 54% of its twins. Area: 406 ha, against a median of 788 ha.

In 2 of 24, 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 4.9 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

Is the rain that usually ends them coming?

10 days

2 of the 5 models add up to 4.9 mm in the next ten days: the first on Mon 23, the last on Tue 24.

1 mmmedian 4.910 mm
  • ECMWF IFS · ECMWF Mon 23
  • ECMWF AIFS · ECMWF Tue 24
  • GFS · NOAA not in 10 days
  • ICON · DWD not in 6 days
  • GEM · ECCC not in 8 days

Accumulated rain at the centre of the fire from tomorrow. The green band is the rain of the first wet day (1 mm or more) its twins had when they ended. Rain arriving does not put the fire out: it is a favourable condition, not an end date. Many are put out by firefighters.

This is not an official warning. The fire’s progress and its extinction are announced by the emergency services: NIFC · National Interagency Fire Center

Forecast from our own Open-Meteo instance, run of 15 Nov 2026, 06:14 UTC: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · ECMWF IFS 0,25° · ECMWF AIFS · NOAA NCEP GFS · DWD ICON · ECCC GEM

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 · 5 Nov 2026
After · 14 Nov 2026

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 · 30Every 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 Santa Rosa fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 12 November 2026 to 14 November 2026 (3 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?
There is no official perimeter yet: NIFC has not published it. Heat detections rebuild about 406 hectares with fire (4.1 km²).
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Santa Rosa (378 ha, 0.1 %); Okaloosa (28 ha, 0.0 %).
Is the Santa Rosa fire still active?
Yes: satellites detected fire on 14 Nov 2026, 19:21 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.1 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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: 24. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 788 ha; 42 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 24, 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 4.9 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

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
  • No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 406 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
  • Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 30 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.

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.