How long did the Sterling Complex fire last?

It burned between 12 August 2018 and 12 August 2018: 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 956 hectares (9.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Lincoln (960 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.

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 · 2018-08-12 → 2018-08-12

Sterling Complex, August 2018 Lincoln

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2018, 20:23 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2018 in Lincoln, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 956 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 189th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 333 in United States in 2018, of 511.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 956ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 12 Aug 2018 – 12 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 12 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 287; in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Energy released: 593MW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Aug 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1213

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

61km/h · peak gust

6%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 26 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Lincoln where it started

960 ha reached on 5 Aug

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)
5 Aug	23.8 °C	27 %	22 km/h	0.2 mm	High 29
6 Aug	27.1 °C	17 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
7 Aug	28.2 °C	15 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 Aug	30.6 °C	11 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Aug	33.6 °C	8 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
10 Aug	36.8 °C	6 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
11 Aug	30.9 °C	19 %	49 km/h	2.0 mm	High 25
12 Aug	20.1 °C	29 %	54 km/h	0.9 mm	High 23
13 Aug after	23.8 °C	20 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
14 Aug after	26.4 °C	15 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 Aug after	27.9 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Aug after	28.7 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Aug after	27.4 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.9 mm	High 32
18 Aug after	26.1 °C	12 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
19 Aug after	22.1 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Aug after	17.6 °C	38 %	61 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 18
21 Aug after	24.0 °C	20 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
22 Aug after	25.9 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Aug after	23.4 °C	20 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Aug after	17.0 °C	33 %	54 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34
25 Aug after	17.4 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 Aug after	14.0 °C	47 %	45 km/h	3.0 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Aug 2018

After · 19 Aug 2018

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 · 287Every 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 Sterling Complex fire last?: It burned between 12 August 2018 and 12 August 2018: 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 956 hectares (9.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Lincoln (960 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
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 ↗

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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