How long did the Scu Lightning Complex fire last?

It burned between 16 August 2020 and 16 August 2020: 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 164,158 hectares (1,641.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire entered 6 counties: Stanislaus (70,970 ha, 18 %); Santa Clara (70,528 ha, 21 %); Alameda (9,988 ha, 5.1 %); San Joaquin (9,871 ha, 2.7 %); Merced (1,573 ha, 0.3 %); Contra Costa (1,348 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.

US · United States · 2020-08-16 → 2020-08-16

Scu Lightning Complex, August 2020 Stanislaus, Santa Clara, Alameda

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2020, 20:39 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2020 in Santa Clara, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 164,158 hectares, spread across 6 counties.

It is the 5th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 2 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area: 164,158ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 16 Aug 2020 – 16 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit: 6; counties
Started on: 16 Aug; 2020
Heat detections: 9,722; in a single hotspot: 762 MW
Danger at start: 49; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 18.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 17 Aug 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1617

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

47km/h · peak gust

5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2019.

3 ha Rock fire, June 2019 993 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Stanislaus

70,970 ha reached on 16 Aug

18 %
Santa Clara where it started

70,528 ha reached on 16 Aug

21 %
Alameda

9,988 ha reached on 16 Aug

5.1 %
San Joaquin

9,871 ha reached on 17 Aug

2.7 %
Merced

1,573 ha reached on 22 Aug

0.3 %
Contra Costa

1,348 ha reached on 16 Aug

0.7 %

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)
16 Aug	37.0 °C	20 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
17 Aug after	36.8 °C	19 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
18 Aug after	37.5 °C	19 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
19 Aug after	35.7 °C	11 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
20 Aug after	34.4 °C	5 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
21 Aug after	33.7 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
22 Aug after	34.4 °C	15 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
23 Aug after	35.0 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
24 Aug after	34.0 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Aug after	30.5 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.2 mm	High 36
26 Aug after	31.0 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
27 Aug after	31.0 °C	13 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
28 Aug after	33.1 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
29 Aug after	32.3 °C	16 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Aug after	33.0 °C	16 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
31 Aug after	32.9 °C	15 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Sept after	32.6 °C	21 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
2 Sept after	32.3 °C	21 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Aug 2020

After · 23 Aug 2020

Before After

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 · 9,722Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

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Frequently asked questions

How long did the Scu Lightning Complex fire last?: It burned between 16 August 2020 and 16 August 2020: 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 164,158 hectares (1,641.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire entered 6 counties: Stanislaus (70,970 ha, 18 %); Santa Clara (70,528 ha, 21 %); Alameda (9,988 ha, 5.1 %); San Joaquin (9,871 ha, 2.7 %); Merced (1,573 ha, 0.3 %); Contra Costa (1,348 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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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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.

Where it burned