Skip to content
worldfires
en
US · United States · →

Three Queens Fire, July 2026 Kittitas

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2026, 20:59 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2026 in Kittitas, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,879 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 79th largest in Washington since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 113 in United States in 2026, of 423.

Burnt area
3,879ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
7days
16 Jul 2026 – 22 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Jul
2026
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
83MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

22 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul22 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

17 Jul 2026 · 5 MW · 1 22 Jul 2026 · 161 MW · 3
17 Jul 22 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
49km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 23 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kittitas where it started
    3,895 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
16 Jul 21.9 °C 52 % 41 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 2
17 Jul 18.2 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
18 Jul 17.1 °C 53 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
19 Jul 21.2 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
20 Jul 24.2 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Jul 28.3 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Jul 30.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Jul after 21.5 °C 60 % 43 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2026
After · 29 Jul 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 21 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1036 µg/m³
Optical depth0.53
141516171819202122232425
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 · 4Every 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 Three Queens fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 July 2026 to 22 July 2026 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 July 2026 to 16 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 3,879 hectares (38.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Kittitas (3,895 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class 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.

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.