How long did the Trap fire last?

It burned between 14 September 2020 and 14 September 2020: 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 985 hectares (9.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.

Which counties burned?

The fire only entered Custer (990 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 22.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

US · United States · 2020-09-14 → 2020-09-14

Trap Fire, September 2020 Custer

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2020, 19:57 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2020 in Custer, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 985 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 225th largest in Idaho since 2016 (of 379 with a page). Number 277 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area: 985ha; official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration: 1day; 14 Sept 2020 – 14 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 14 Sept; 2020
Heat detections: 102; in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Energy released: 177MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

23°high

71km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.4 mm on 10 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Custer where it started

990 ha reached on 15 Sept

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)
14 Sept	22.9 °C	17 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Sept after	22.6 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Sept after	21.7 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Sept after	22.5 °C	19 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Sept after	16.9 °C	30 %	58 km/h	3.3 mm	Low 6
19 Sept after	12.5 °C	59 %	55 km/h	5.5 mm	Very low 0
20 Sept after	16.7 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
21 Sept after	21.6 °C	20 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
22 Sept after	18.6 °C	28 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
23 Sept after	19.4 °C	28 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
24 Sept after	14.7 °C	42 %	64 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 19
25 Sept after	12.2 °C	44 %	71 km/h	2.5 mm	Very low 5
26 Sept after	12.0 °C	38 %	66 km/h	7.3 mm	Very low 1
27 Sept after	13.2 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
28 Sept after	20.9 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
29 Sept after	22.6 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
30 Sept after	22.5 °C	16 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
1 Oct after	21.1 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
2 Oct after	20.8 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
3 Oct after	21.4 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
4 Oct after	20.6 °C	21 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Oct after	20.9 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
6 Oct after	22.3 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
7 Oct after	19.5 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
8 Oct after	18.3 °C	17 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
9 Oct after	17.9 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
10 Oct after	11.7 °C	28 %	68 km/h	14.4 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Sept 2020

After · 21 Sept 2020

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 · 102Every 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

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Trap fire last?: It burned between 14 September 2020 and 14 September 2020: 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 985 hectares (9.8 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?: The fire only entered Custer (990 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 22.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
NIFC · Fire maps ↗

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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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