Awatchfire

Yakima County, Washington

Colwash Fire

Burning 10.0 miles west of Mabton and 11.8 miles south of Granger, since Saturday 22 August.

Map of Washington. The Colwash Fire burns 33 miles from Yakima and 59 miles from Ellensburg, and 141 miles from the state capital, Olympia.
The fire sits 33 miles from Yakima and 59 miles from Ellensburg.

39,073

acres burned so far — about 61 square miles

6

days burning so far

96%

of the perimeter held

The picture as of 1:52pm today

The Colwash Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. Nothing has given off fresh heat for 130 hours. What is burning has shifted 2.93 miles south-east over the last six hours.

No fresh look at this fire for 130 hours. Everything on the map below was seen before then.

Shaded relief map of the Colwash Fire. Amber flames mark every place that gave off heat in the last day; the shading is the shape of the ground.
Heat in the last day Higher ground pale, valleys dark

130hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 3:40am on Sunday, local time.

94% less

energy in the last 6 hours of the record than in the 6 before them — the fire was cooler when it was last seen.

4.3miles

is how close the heat has come to Mabton at any point in the record. In the last day the nearest heat has been None miles from it, and the closest this fire has come to Granger is 11.4 miles, None in the last day.

6.6miles

is the furthest any heat has been seen from the point on the official record — the width of the ground involved so far.

Smoke has been recorded lying over this ground 15 times so far. The thickest of it was moderate between 1:10pm and 4:30pm local time.

Where the heat is

No cluster large enough to call a separate front. The heat is in one piece.

Conditions measured 17.9 miles from the fire: 80°F, air at 24% humidity, a 5 mph wind out of the north-west.

How it got here

Two days of record on a day-7 fire

The record here begins at 2:38pm on 22 Aug and runs to 3:38am on 23 Aug — 13 hours, 26 readings of heat. The fire is on day 7, so the first 5 days are missing: nothing showed up from above until the fire was large enough and the sky over it clear enough for it to be seen. There is no long arc to draw yet. What follows is what has actually happened.

Animated map of the Colwash Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 20 frames at 1 hour a frame. The bar along the bottom is energy released; the moving line is the clock.

Hour by hour local time

Sat 2:00pmSun 3:00am

Each bar is one hour of local time, sized by how much energy the fire gave off in it. This fire is too young for a day-against-day comparison to say anything, so the hours are shown instead.

Day by day 2 days of record

  1. Map for Sat 22 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Sat22 Aug

    First readings

    • 18 heat readings — the most of any day
    • Heat from 2:38pm to 9:40pm
    • Spread 6.5 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon and night
  2. Map for Sun 23 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Sun23 Auglatest

    Cooling off

    • 8 heat readings
    • Energy 98% down on the day before
    • Heat from 1:58am to 3:38am
    • Spread 6.6 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn

96% of the perimeter is being reported as held. 4 people are assigned to it. It has grown from 0 acres when it was first written down to 39,073 now. Nothing has looked at it for 130 hours, and the record still lists it as active.