Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States · →

Snider Fire, September 2020 Custer, Rosebud, Powder River

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2020, 20:22 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2020 in Custer, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 13,448 hectares, spread across 3 counties.

It is the 18th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 50 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
13,448ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
2 Sept 2020 – 2 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
2 Sept
2020
Heat detections
232
in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

23

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
77km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.7 mm on 7 Sept.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,570 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Custer where it started
    9,828 ha reached on 2 Sept
    1.0 %
  2. Rosebud
    2,346 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.2 %
  3. Powder River
    1,180 ha reached on 3 Sept
    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)
28 Aug 25.8 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug 33.9 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Aug 21.6 °C 30 % 49 km/h 1.0 mm High 32
31 Aug 21.2 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Sept 28.2 °C 18 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Sept 33.1 °C 11 % 77 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 91
3 Sept after 26.4 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept after 30.5 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept after 37.0 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Sept after 26.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Sept after 14.5 °C 52 % 46 km/h 12.7 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2020
After · 9 Sept 2020

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 · 232Every 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 Snider fire last?
It burned between 2 September 2020 and 2 September 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 13,448 hectares (134.5 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 3 counties: Custer (9,828 ha, 1.0 %); Rosebud (2,346 ha, 0.2 %); Powder River (1,180 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 77 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 91, 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

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.

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.