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Whaleback Fire, July 2018 Lassen

Out · last detection 28 Jul 2018, 22:02 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2018 in Lassen, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 7,544 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 105th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 82 in United States in 2018, of 511.

Burnt area
7,544ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
27 Jul 2018 – 27 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
27 Jul
2018
Heat detections
882
in a single hotspot: 461 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

28

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
47km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 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. Lassen where it started
    7,572 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
27 Jul 33.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul after 32.7 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul after 32.8 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jul after 33.1 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jul after 32.5 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Aug after 32.6 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Aug after 31.7 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug after 29.4 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Aug after 27.5 °C 10 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Aug after 28.5 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Aug after 30.3 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug after 32.7 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Aug after 34.4 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Aug after 35.1 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Aug after 33.8 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Aug after 33.1 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 58
12 Aug after 32.5 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Aug after 31.7 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2018
After · 3 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 · 882Every 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 Whaleback fire last?
It burned between 27 July 2018 and 27 July 2018: 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 7,544 hectares (75.4 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Lassen (7,572 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.