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Walker Fire, June 2020 Calaveras

Out · last detection 17 Jun 2020, 10:01 UTC

The fire started on 16 June 2020 in Calaveras, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 626 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 365th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 361 in United States in 2020, of 441.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
626ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
16 Jun 2020 – 16 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Jun
2020
Heat detections
30
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
76MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jun16 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

17

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
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 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. Calaveras where it started
    628 ha reached on 17 Jun
    0.2 %

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 Jun 25.1 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jun after 29.8 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jun after 32.2 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Jun after 31.9 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jun after 30.8 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jun after 31.8 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jun after 33.8 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jun after 33.8 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jun after 33.2 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jun after 34.2 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jun after 33.5 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jun after 34.2 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jun 2020
After · 23 Jun 2020

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 · 30Every 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 Walker fire last?
It burned between 16 June 2020 and 16 June 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 626 hectares (6.3 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Calaveras (628 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.