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Tamarack Fire, July 2021 Alpine, Douglas, Mono

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2021, 22:01 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2021 in Alpine, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 28,922 hectares, spread across 3 counties.

It is the 41th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 23 in United States in 2021, of 385.

Burnt area
28,922ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
4days
1 Jul 2021 – 4 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
1 Jul
2021
Heat detections
3,248
in a single hotspot: 893 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

234

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
52km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Alpine where it started
    22,623 ha reached on 2 Jul
    12 %
  2. Douglas
    6,225 ha reached on 20 Jul
    3.2 %
  3. Mono
    71 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
1 Jul 31.6 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 46
2 Jul 31.8 °C 18 % 47 km/h 1.9 mm High 29
3 Jul 32.8 °C 15 % 51 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 43
4 Jul 30.7 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 43
5 Jul after 32.7 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jul after 32.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jul after 34.1 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Jul after 34.3 °C 15 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
9 Jul after 33.6 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 55
10 Jul after 35.3 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Jul after 35.7 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Jul after 36.3 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Jul after 33.9 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Jul after 34.1 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2021
After · 11 Jul 2021

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 · 3,248Every 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 Tamarack fire last?
It burned between 1 July 2021 and 4 July 2021: 4 days, 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 28,922 hectares (289.2 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 3 counties: Alpine (22,623 ha, 12 %); Douglas (6,225 ha, 3.2 %); Mono (71 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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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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.