Awatchfire

Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota

Rancher Fire

Burning 3.5 miles north of Porcupine and 9.7 miles north-east of Manderson-White Horse Creek, since Tuesday 11 August.

Map of South Dakota. The Rancher Fire burns .
Where the fire is in the state.

504

acres burned so far — about 0.8 square miles

64

days burning so far

100%

of the perimeter held

The picture as of 10:09am today

The Rancher Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. Nothing has given off fresh heat for 956 hours. There is no clear movement in the last six hours: the middle of the heat has shifted less than the width of the ground a single reading covers.

No fresh look at this fire for 956 hours. Everything on the map below was seen before then.

Shaded relief map of the Rancher 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

956hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 1:40pm on Saturday, local time.

541% more

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

2.5miles

is how close the heat has come to Porcupine 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 Manderson-White Horse Creek is 8.7 miles, None in the last day.

2.5miles

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

Four other fires are burning inside the same view. Candle Fire started 1005 minutes after this one, 0.9 miles south-east, and has reached 64 acres. Event Fire started on Friday 4 September, 2.0 miles east, and has reached 230 acres. Needles Fire started on Friday 4 September, 1.7 miles south-east, and has reached 6,018 acres with 14 people assigned. Phahin Fire started 110 minutes after this one, 3.4 miles south-east, and has reached 26 acres. Their heat is counted against them, not against this fire, and the pale rings on the map mark where they are recorded.

Smoke has been recorded lying over this ground six times so far. The thickest of it was thin between 2:10pm and 5:30pm local time. The last of those windows closed 121 hours ago, so what is overhead now is not known.

Where the heat is

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

Conditions measured 3.9 miles from the fire: 49°F, air at 59% humidity, a 25 mph wind out of the north.

How it got here

Two days of record on a day-66 fire

The record here begins at 2:34pm on 4 Sep and runs to 1:38pm on 5 Sep — 23 hours, 52 readings of heat. The fire is on day 66, so the first 64 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 Rancher Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 30 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

Fri 2:00pmSat 1:00pm

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 Fri 4 Sep: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Fri4 Sep

    First readings

    • 29 heat readings — the most of any day
    • Heat from 2:34pm to 9:17pm
    • Spread 2.5 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon and night
  2. Map for Sat 5 Sep: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Sat5 Seplatest

    Cooling off

    • 23 heat readings
    • Energy 88% down on the day before
    • Heat from 3:09am to 1:38pm
    • Spread 1.2 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn, morning and afternoon

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. Tuesday 11 August

    First reported

  2. Sunday 23 August

    503 acres on record — 85% contained, 20 personnel assigned

    503 ac · 85% held · 20 crew

  3. Thursday 27 August

    Containment 95%

    503 ac · 95% held · 20 crew

  4. Friday 28 August

    Containment 100% — 2 personnel

    503 ac · 100% held · 2 crew

  5. Tuesday 1 September

    Grew to 504 acres

    504 ac · 100% held · 2 crew

100% of the perimeter is being reported as held. 2 people are assigned to it. It stands at 504 acres on the latest record. Nothing has looked at it for 956 hours, and the record still lists it as active.