Awatchfire

Snohomish County, Washington

Gamma Creek Fire

Burning 26.5 miles east of Darrington and 31.3 miles south-east of Marblemount, since Sunday 23 August.

Map of Washington. The Gamma Creek Fire burns 71 miles from Seattle and 77 miles from Bellingham, and 116 miles from the state capital, Olympia.
The fire sits 71 miles from Seattle and 77 miles from Bellingham.

29

acres burned so far

52

days burning so far

—

no share of the perimeter reported held yet

The picture as of 9:09am today

The Gamma Creek Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. Nothing has given off fresh heat for 1206 hours.

No fresh look at this fire for 1206 hours. Everything on the map below was seen before then.

Shaded relief map of the Gamma Creek 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 Where another fire is recorded

1206hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 3:15am on Wednesday, local time.

0readings

of heat in the last day. There is not yet an earlier stretch of record to compare that against.

26.5miles

is how close the heat has come to Darrington 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 Marblemount is 31.2 miles, None in the last day.

0.2miles

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

Another fire is burning inside the same view. Miners Fire started on Friday 14 August, 2.9 miles north, and has reached 151 acres with 2 people assigned. Its heat is counted against it, not against this fire, and the pale ring on the map marks where it is recorded.

One larger fire is burning outside this frame: Little Giant Fire 14.2 miles south-east at 172,912 acres. None of their heat is counted here.

No smoke has been recorded lying over this ground.

Where the heat is

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

Conditions measured 19.4 miles from the fire: 40°F, air at 99% humidity, a 0 mph wind out of the north-west.

How it got here

Two days of record on a day-54 fire

The record here begins at 1:42pm on 25 Aug and runs to 3:17am on 26 Aug — 14 hours, 2 readings of heat. The fire is on day 54, so the first 52 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 Gamma Creek Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 21 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

Tue 1:00pmWed 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 Tue 25 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Tue25 Aug

    First readings

    • 1 heat readings — the most of any day
    • Heat from 1:42pm to 1:42pm
    • Spread 0.0 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon
  2. Map for Wed 26 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Wed26 Auglatest

    Cooling off

    • 1 heat readings
    • Energy 100% down on the day before
    • Heat from 3:17am to 3:17am
    • Spread 0.2 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn

How the record has moved

Each step is a change on the interagency incident record — acreage, containment or crews — with the date it was reported. No satellite reading is involved.

  1. Sunday 23 August

    First reported at 3 acres

    3 ac

  2. Sunday 23 August

    3 acres on record

    3 ac

  3. Tuesday 1 September

    Grew to 12 acres

    12 ac

  4. Wednesday 9 September

    Grew to 29 acres

    29 ac

No containment figure has been reported for it yet. No crew count has been published for it yet. It has grown from 3 acres when it was first written down to 29 now. Nothing has looked at it for 1206 hours, and the record still lists it as active.