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Van Camp Fire, August 2022 Idaho

Out · last measured on 12 Aug 2022

The fire started on 12 August 2022 in Idaho, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,235 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 196th largest in Idaho since 2016 (of 379 with a page). Number 271 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Burnt area
1,235ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
12 Aug 2022 – 12 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Aug
2022
Heat detections
170
in a single hotspot: 76 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug12 Aug

The weather it burned in

38°high
61km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.2 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Idaho where it started
    1,239 ha reached on 16 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)
12 Aug 33.9 °C 23 % 44 km/h 1.5 mm High 28
13 Aug after 29.4 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Aug after 31.3 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Aug after 33.6 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Aug after 36.2 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 38.2 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Aug after 37.7 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug after 36.1 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
20 Aug after 34.0 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 35.1 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug after 31.9 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Aug after 32.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
24 Aug after 32.0 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm High 35
25 Aug after 30.5 °C 28 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug after 30.8 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Aug after 25.3 °C 33 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Aug after 24.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug after 32.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug after 35.8 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Aug after 37.8 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Sept after 33.7 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept after 37.2 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Sept after 34.2 °C 16 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Sept after 32.3 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept after 29.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Sept after 36.8 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept after 33.2 °C 21 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Sept after 23.6 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept after 25.7 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Sept after 29.3 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept after 29.8 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept after 29.1 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 24.1 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Sept after 25.0 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 20
15 Sept after 23.0 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
16 Sept after 21.4 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
17 Sept after 24.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Sept after 21.6 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
19 Sept after 24.9 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Sept after 26.6 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Sept after 27.7 °C 19 % 37 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 17
22 Sept after 14.2 °C 81 % 44 km/h 13.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2022
After · 19 Aug 2022

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 11 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 68 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak68 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1098 µg/m³
Optical depth0.44
101112131415
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 · 170Every 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 Van Camp fire last?
It burned between 12 August 2022 and 12 August 2022: 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 1,235 hectares (12.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Idaho (1,239 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
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
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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.