How long did the Sheep fire last?

It burned between 8 September 2022 and 8 September 2022: 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 2,331 hectares (23.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire entered 2 counties: Gooding (1,545 ha, 0.8 %); Jerome (778 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 85, class Very 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 · 2022-09-08 → 2022-09-08

Sheep Fire, September 2022 Gooding, Jerome

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2022, 20:41 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2022 in Gooding, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,331 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 126th largest in Idaho since 2016 (of 379 with a page). Number 184 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Burnt area: 2,331ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 8 Sept 2022 – 8 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 8 Sept; 2022
Heat detections: 46; in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start: 85; Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 2.0GW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept8 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

62km/h · peak gust

6%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 237 ha in 2017, 548 ha in 2018, 431 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,065 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Gooding where it started

1,545 ha reached on 8 Sept

0.8 %
Jerome

778 ha

0.5 %

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)
8 Sept	31.1 °C	6 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 85
9 Sept after	26.4 °C	13 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
10 Sept after	29.0 °C	10 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
11 Sept after	33.0 °C	11 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
12 Sept after	32.2 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
13 Sept after	23.8 °C	20 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 45
14 Sept after	28.0 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
15 Sept after	25.7 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.6 mm	High 34
16 Sept after	26.4 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 39
17 Sept after	23.9 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
18 Sept after	28.9 °C	18 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Sept 2022

After · 15 Sept 2022

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 9 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak42 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1060 µg/m³

Optical depth0.44

WHO 15

67891011

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 · 46Every 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

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sheep fire last?: It burned between 8 September 2022 and 8 September 2022: 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 2,331 hectares (23.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire entered 2 counties: Gooding (1,545 ha, 0.8 %); Jerome (778 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 85, class Very 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