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US · United States · –

Timber Crater 6 Fire, July 2018 Klamath

Out · last detection 28 Jul 2018, 20:22 UTC

The fire started on 15 July 2018 in Klamath, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,263 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 207th largest in Oregon since 2016 (of 325 with a page). Number 272 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
1,263ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 14days
15 Jul 2018 – 28 Jul 2018
Counties hit
1
counties
Started on
15 Jul
2018
Heat detections
304
in a single hotspot: 173 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
311MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jul28 Jul
28 Jul 2018

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2018 · 16 MW · 4 19 Jul 2018 · 699 MW · 17 20 Jul 2018 · 206 MW · 27 21 Jul 2018 · 1,090 MW · 50 22 Jul 2018 · 396 MW · 44 23 Jul 2018 · 151 MW · 59 24 Jul 2018 · 93 MW · 36 25 Jul 2018 · 336 MW · 30 26 Jul 2018 · 407 MW · 28 27 Jul 2018 · 10 MW · 7 28 Jul 2018 · 14 MW · 2
18 Jul 21 Jul 24 Jul 27 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
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 4 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (13 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each county

  1. Klamath where it started
    1,268 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. 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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
15 Jul 25.1 °C 24 % 49 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 15
16 Jul 28.5 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
17 Jul 30.0 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Jul 28.4 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jul 27.4 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul 27.8 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jul 26.1 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jul 28.8 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jul 29.6 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 45
24 Jul 30.1 °C 19 % 40 km/h 2.4 mm High 22
25 Jul 30.2 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
26 Jul 30.5 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jul 29.1 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul 27.9 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jul after 31.1 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul after 30.7 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jul after 29.1 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Aug after 28.4 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Aug after 24.8 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Aug after 23.5 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Aug after 21.6 °C 18 % 41 km/h 1.3 mm High 22

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 14.9, a minimum humidity of 24% and 24 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 14.9
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 24
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Petes Lake Fire, August 2023
1,365 ha 4 days FWI 14.9 Min. humidity 24 % 100 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 29 Aug.

What happened to them

14 days
median duration
1,537 ha
median area
70 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 26 of 27 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,263 ha against a median of 1,537 ha) and lasted 14 days, against 14 days.

In 1 of 27, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.4 mm.

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 it ended

1.3 mmfirst rain
4 Aug7 days after it ended
49km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Jul, and on 4 Aug 1.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 26 of 27, with a median of 3.4 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

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 · 8 Jul 2018
After · 4 Aug 2018

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 · 304Every 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 Timber Crater 6 Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (15 July 2018). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 28 July 2018 (14 days from 15 July 2018), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 1,263 hectares (12.6 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Klamath (1,268 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 49 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 27. Their median duration was 14 days and their median area 1,537 ha; 70 % went past 1,000 ha. In 1 of 27, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.4 mm.

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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 304 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.