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Willie Fire, August 2017 Trinity

Out · last measured on 8 Aug 2017

The fire started on 8 August 2017 in Trinity, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 1,312 hectares, spread across a single county.

It is the 247th largest in California since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 328 in United States in 2017, of 619.

Burnt area
1,312ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
8 Aug 2017 – 8 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
8 Aug
2017
Heat detections
133
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug8 Aug

The weather it burned in

32°high
46km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 21 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Trinity where it started
    1,305 ha reached on 10 Aug
    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)
8 Aug 28.4 °C 30 % 36 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 13
9 Aug after 27.6 °C 34 % 35 km/h 3.1 mm Low 7
10 Aug after 28.4 °C 29 % 38 km/h 3.0 mm Low 8
11 Aug after 29.8 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Aug after 29.8 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug after 29.6 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 27.0 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Aug after 26.5 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Aug after 29.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Aug after 30.8 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Aug after 31.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 31.7 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
20 Aug after 29.6 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
21 Aug after 28.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2017
After · 15 Aug 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 · 133Every 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 Willie fire last?
It burned between 8 August 2017 and 8 August 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 1,312 hectares (13.1 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire only entered Trinity (1,305 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

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.