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US · United States · –

St. Mary fire, November 2026 St. Mary, Iberia

Dying down · last detection 8 Nov 2026, 18:49 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 3 November 2026 in St. Mary, United States. It has been active for 6 days, with 38 heat detections and an area with fire of about 490 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 2 counties.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cottonmouth · 2016Cameron · 2019

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?

No detections since 8 Nov 2026, 18:49 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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.

Wind, humidity and rain for the next 72 h

Area with fire
≈ 490ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
6days
3 Nov 2026 – 8 Nov 2026
Counties hit
2
counties
Started on
3 Nov
2026
Heat detections
38
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
5
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
177MW
detected power per day, on average

The next 72 hours

The wind is blowing from the north-east and pushing to the south-west; no sharp shifts are expected until Thu 12, 11:00.

ECMWF IFS 0.25° at the centre of the fire · computed 9 Nov 2026, 14:57 UTC

Wed 11, 00:00, local time

First useful rain: 2.8 mm in 6 h

Chance of rain up to 38 % in those hours. It can slow the fire at the surface, but that does not mean it will go out.

Checked, no warning: no wind shifts of more than 60° nights recover humidity (peaks of 87 % or more)

Hour by hour, local time

Tap the strip to see each hour

Mean wind Gusts where it blows to Relative humidity Night (8 pm to 8 am) Rain (mm) · chance in %

Where is it blowing? The next 48 h

geoBoundaries/United States Census Bureau, MAF/TIGER Database (Public Domain)

At this hour

Places the fan reaches

    Is it heading my way?

    We compare your point with the fan for each hour. Your location never leaves your device.

    or tap the map

    This is not an official warning. It is a global model forecast with cells of about 25 km, at the centre of the fire: it cannot see valley winds or the winds the fire itself creates. The fan shows where the wind blows, not where the fire will spread. If in doubt, follow what the authorities say.

    Emergencies · United States 911 Emergency number and official warnings

    Forecast: ECMWF IFS 0.25° (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), served by our own Open-Meteo instance; the chance of rain comes from the ECMWF ensemble. Variables: wind and gusts at 10 m, wind at 850 hPa, relative humidity and temperature at 2 m, rain. Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).

    Fire: VIIRS (NASA FIRMS); hotspots from the last 24 h: VIIRS from NASA FIRMS. Boundaries: geoBoundaries/United States Census Bureau, MAF/TIGER Database (Public Domain).

    How it is worked out: wind shift = a change of more than 60° in 6 h or less, with at least 15 km/h before and after; no overnight recovery = peak humidity between 8 pm and 8 am stays below 55 %; useful rain = 2 mm or more in 6 h. The fan opens 18° plus however much the wind varies within ±3 h and reaches 25 km beyond the edge of the fire: one model cell, not a rate of spread. Methodology

    Where it burned

    HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Nov8 Nov
    8 Nov 2026

    How it evolved, day by day

    3 Nov 2026 · 0 MW · 0 4 Nov 2026 · 248 MW · 8 5 Nov 2026 · 352 MW · 14 6 Nov 2026 · 139 MW · 5 7 Nov 2026 · 142 MW · 8 8 Nov 2026 · 3 MW · 1
    3 Nov 5 Nov 7 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

    28°high
    33km/h · peak gust
    37%lowest humidity

    It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

    What happened to each county

    1. St. Mary where it started
      406 ha reached on 3 Nov
      0.2 %
    2. 84 ha reached on 5 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)
    3 Nov 28.4 °C 62 % 33 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 5
    4 Nov 26.4 °C 53 % 26 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 3
    5 Nov 26.3 °C 46 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
    6 Nov 26.6 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
    7 Nov 25.0 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
    8 Nov 21.3 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14

    Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

    It started with an FWI of 4.6, a minimum humidity of 62% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 13.

    FWI at the start 4.6
    Minimum humidity 62 %
    Days without rain 0
    this fire chosen twins rest of the area
    Almost identicalSimilar

    Outlines of the closest twins

    Cottonmouth Fire, June 2016
    1,840 ha 3 days FWI 1.1 Min. humidity 61 % 182 km away, in 2016

    First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.3 mm on 29 Jun.

    What happened to them

    Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 13. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

    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

    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 · 27 Oct 2026
    After · 8 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.

    The smoke

    CAMS · Copernicus

    On 18 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

    PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
    Days over the guideline0 days
    PM1019 µg/m³
    Optical depth0.30
    7 Oct10 Oct13 Oct16 Oct
    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 · 38Every 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

    Frequently asked questions

    How long did the St. Mary fire last?
    According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 3 November 2026 to 8 November 2026 (6 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 490 hectares with fire (4.9 km²).
    Which counties burned?
    The fire entered 2 counties: St. Mary (406 ha, 0.2 %); Iberia (84 ha, 0.0 %).
    Is the St. Mary fire still active?
    No fire detections since 8 Nov 2026, 18:49 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
    What was the weather like?
    During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
    What weather is expected at the fire over the next 72 hours?
    The wind is blowing from the north-east and pushing to the south-west; no sharp shifts are expected until Thu 12, 11:00. First useful rain: 2.8 mm in 6 h (Wed 11, 00:00). Times are local time at the fire. ECMWF IFS forecast (Open-Meteo) computed 9 Nov 2026, 14:57 UTC; this is not an official warning.
    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 · Emergency number and official warnings

    Satellite cross-check

    History of this page · 23 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
    1. Area: ≈ 406 → ≈ 490 ha.
    2. Start date: 24 October 2026 → 3 November 2026.
    3. Name: Iberia → St. Mary.
    4. Last day with fire: 23 October 2026 → 3 November 2026.
    5. Area: ≈ 434 → ≈ 406 ha.
    6. Area: ≈ 546 → ≈ 434 ha.
    7. Start date: 23 October 2026 → 24 October 2026.
    8. Area: ≈ 406 → ≈ 546 ha.
    9. Start date: 22 October 2026 → 23 October 2026.
    10. Area: ≈ 434 → ≈ 406 ha.
    11. Start date: 21 October 2026 → 22 October 2026.
    12. Area: ≈ 448 → ≈ 434 ha.
    13. Start date: 20 October 2026 → 21 October 2026.
    14. Name: St. Mary → Iberia.
    15. Area: ≈ 574 → ≈ 448 ha.
    16. Start date: 19 October 2026 → 20 October 2026.
    17. Area: ≈ 826 → ≈ 574 ha.
    18. Start date: 18 October 2026 → 19 October 2026.
    19. Start date: 16 October 2026 → 18 October 2026.
    20. Area: ≈ 756 → ≈ 826 ha.
    21. Start date: 15 October 2026 → 16 October 2026.
    22. Area: ≈ 504 → ≈ 756 ha.
    23. Start date: 14 October 2026 → 15 October 2026.

    RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

    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
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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.

    How we know this
    • No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 490 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
    • Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 38 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.