Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in West Coast
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 3,470 fire detections seen from space; 49,939 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2025, 4,060.
Two readings from space. Fire detections are hot spots a VIIRS satellite saw as it passed, each about 375 m across, counted where they fall in the place: a big fire gives many, a short one between passes none. Burnt area is the ground that looks burnt afterwards, from Sentinel-3 at 300 m, in hectares. Neither is a fire report from the ground.
The last twelve months
- 3,470Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 49,939 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 148 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 1,795 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 449 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 56 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 326 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 381 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 58 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 39 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 10 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 60 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 85 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 63 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 1,663 ha burnt (0.053% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 20,622 ha burnt (0.66% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 7,160 ha burnt (0.23% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 198 ha burnt (0.006% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 16,068 ha burnt (0.52% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 3,955 ha burnt (0.13% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 273 ha burnt (0.009% of the place) |
| June 2026 | not out yet |
| July 2026 | not out yet |
| August 2026 | not out yet |
| September 2026 | not out yet |
| October 2026 | not out yet |
| Month | Detections | Nominal or high confidence | NOAA-20 (second reading) | Burnt | Share of the place | Land seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | 63 | 58 | 70 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 85 | 83 | 82 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 60 | 60 | 80 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 10 | 10 | 15 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 39 | 39 | 30 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 58 | 57 | 61 | 273 ha | 0.009% | 100% |
| April 2026 | 381 | 355 | 374 | 3,955 ha | 0.13% | 100% |
| March 2026 | 326 | 255 | 347 | 16,068 ha | 0.52% | 100% |
| February 2026 | 56 | 44 | 51 | 198 ha | 0.006% | 100% |
| January 2026 | 449 | 403 | 506 | 7,160 ha | 0.23% | 100% |
| December 2025 | 1,795 | 1,612 | 1,870 | 20,622 ha | 0.66% | 100% |
| November 2025 | 148 | 130 | 131 | 1,663 ha | 0.053% | 100% |
NOAA-20 carries the same instrument as S-NPP and passes about 50 minutes apart, so its count is a second reading of the same fires, not extra fires. “Land seen” is the share of the place’s land the burnt-area product saw often enough that month to tell.
The worst years
- 20254,060 fire detections, most in December 2025; 79,142 ha burnt
- 20133,118 fire detections, most in April 2013
- 20172,867 fire detections, most in January 2017
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2025, 79,142 ha (2.5% of the place); 2024, 32,999 ha (1.1% of the place); 2022, 24,972 ha (0.80% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,527 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 4,060 | 79,142 ha | 2.5% |
| 2024 | 2,432 | 32,999 ha | 1.1% |
| 2023 | 960 | 6,201 ha | 0.20% |
| 2022 | 2,106 | 24,972 ha | 0.80% |
| 2021 | 1,987 | 22,846 ha | 0.73% |
| 2020 | 1,462 | 18,339 ha | 0.59% |
| 2019 | 1,288 | 14,061 ha | 0.45% |
| 2018 | 1,616 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 2,867 | · | · |
| 2016 | 2,801 | · | · |
| 2015 | 2,687 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,645 | · | · |
| 2013 | 3,118 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,714 | · | · |
Detections from February 2012 (S-NPP); burnt area from July 2018, so whole years of it from 2019. A larger place’s figures are the sums of its 2026 wards.
Everything we hold for West Coast, on one page
Source
Seen from space by American and European satellites: not fires reported on the ground.
How we worked this out
What we changed: we counted FIRMS’s detections (presumed vegetation fires only) by the 2026 ward their position falls in, and summed CLMS’s burned fraction times each pixel’s area over each ward; municipalities, districts and provinces are the sums of their wards.
Fire detections: we acknowledge the use of data and/or imagery from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), part of NASA’s LANCE (VIIRS 375 m, S-NPP and NOAA-20). Burnt area: generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information (Burnt Area 300 m version 4, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34), modified; this does not mean the European Union endorses us.
Dataset: burnt area and fire, release of 12 November 2026.