This map was created by Liz Anderson, Emily Zentner, Veronika Nagy, Chris Hagan, Renee Thompson, Katy Kidwell and Helga Salinas. Fire namesĬapRadio changed the names of three fires on this map that included a racial slur in accordance with Associated Press guidelines and our own standards.
Fires may be missing altogether or have missing or incorrect attribute data. As of September 2020, Cal Fire had found that the dataset is missing 483 notable fires and is looking to find and add these. Some of the deadliest wildfires on record continue to ravage California, with at least 28 dead and countless homes destroyed. However, the data is by nature incomplete and duplicates may exist. California fires map: How the deadly wildfires are spreading. Ten acres is the federal minimum for reporting.Ĭal Fire says that this dataset - which runs from 1878 to 2020 as of April 2021 and is updated annually - is one of the most complete datasets of California’s fires through history. Cal Fire’s data includes timber fires that burned more than 10 acres, brush fires that burned more than 50 acres and grass fires that burned more than 300 acres, so some smaller fires may not be shown here. Some fires may be missing because historical records were lost or damaged, were too small for the minimum cutoffs, had inadequate documentation or have not yet been incorporated into the database. This means that the causes shown for some fires may be out of date. Cal Fire enters the cause of each year’s fires when this data is captured annually and does not update them if investigations are later completed or determinations are changed. Fire causesĪlso displayed here are the reported cause and acres of each fire shown. These fires are also categorized by the meteorological season in which they started, which are as follows: Winter (December - February), Spring (March - May), Summer (June - August) and Fall (September - November). 2020 is also shown separately because there has been only one recorded fire year so far in the 2020s decade in this dataset. Fires that started between 18 are shown separately here due to more inconsistencies in data for earlier fires. The flames were fueled by intense winds and months of dry weather. 77 fires that did not include a year in the data have been left out. Coffey Park was one of a number of neighborhoods in Northern California’s wine country devastated by wildfires on Monday. These wildfires are categorized by the decade or time period in which they started. This map and data is not intended to be used for legal purposes or statistical analysis. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S.
Totals are calculated using 2020 nighttime estimates from the Landscan, a population database generated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.This map shows the perimeters of more than 20,000 wildfires that have been recorded in California from 1878 to 2020 using data from Cal Fire, the National Parks Service, the U.S. Frontline Wildfire Defense is proud to offer access to this interactive California wildfire map and California wildfire tracker. The quality levels are based on the Air Quality Index developed by the U.S. Readings have been adjusted to account for the properties of wood smoke. Colored squares show levels of particulate matter in the air that average 2.5 microns or smaller in diameter where sensor data is available within a 10-mile radius of each square’s position. The exact boundary of a fire may differ from the extent shown on the map by 500 meters or more.Īir quality data is derived from PurpleAir sensors. Areas marked in red indicate where active burning was detected within 24 hours of the most recent fires reflected on the map.
The locations of the fires on the map are approximate, derived from data reported by the NASA FIRMS satellite-based fire detection system, which makes observations several times a day. The map includes active and recent fires reported by the Wildland Fire Interagency Geospatial Services Group.