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Weasel Fire, September 2017 Lincoln, Flathead

Out · last measured on 2 Sept 2017

The fire started on 2 September 2017 in Lincoln, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,596 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 131th largest in Montana since 2016 (of 302 with a page). Number 301 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Burnt area
1,596ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
2 Sept 2017 – 2 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
2 Sept
2017
Heat detections
336
in a single hotspot: 524 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept2 Sept

The weather it burned in

27°high
71km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.0 mm on 18 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. Lincoln where it started
    1,259 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.1 %
  2. Flathead
    349 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.0 %

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)
2 Sept 26.1 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept after 26.7 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Sept after 20.6 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Sept after 23.0 °C 15 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Sept after 25.0 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept after 26.5 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept after 22.7 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept after 21.3 °C 31 % 71 km/h 0.7 mm High 30
10 Sept after 17.3 °C 23 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Sept after 21.6 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Sept after 20.8 °C 19 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Sept after 15.4 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
14 Sept after 5.9 °C 50 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
15 Sept after 6.3 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Sept after 10.7 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Sept after 13.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Sept after 7.6 °C 45 % 44 km/h 6.0 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2017
After · 9 Sept 2017

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 · 336Every 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 Weasel fire last?
It burned between 2 September 2017 and 2 September 2017: 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 1,596 hectares (16.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Lincoln (1,259 ha, 0.1 %); Flathead (349 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.