Awatchfire

Union County, Oregon

Target Fire

Burning 8.8 miles west of La Grande and 10.6 miles west of Island City, since Friday 2 October.

Map of Oregon. The Target Fire burns 43 miles from Baker City and 173 miles from Bend, and 233 miles from the state capital, Salem.
The fire sits 43 miles from Baker City and 173 miles from Bend.

61

acres burned so far

13

days burning so far

—

no share of the perimeter reported held yet

The picture as of 7:50pm today

The Target Fire is burning. The last heat was seen 4 hours ago.

Shaded relief map of the Target 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

4hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 4:15pm on Thursday, local time.

12readings

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

8.6miles

is how close the heat has come to La Grande at any point in the record. In the last day the nearest heat has been 11.4 miles from it, and the closest this fire has come to Island City is 10.4 miles, 13.3 in the last day.

3.0miles

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 four times so far. The thickest of it was moderate between 11:00am and 4:30pm local time. The last of those windows closed 171 hours ago, so what is overhead now is not known.

One place is burning

2.9 miles west of the recorded point

12 readings of heat in the last day — all of the heat seen in that time.

Conditions measured 15.8 miles from the fire: 56°F, air at 24% humidity, a 3 mph wind out of the east.

How it got here

Five days of record on a day-14 fire

The record here begins at 12:51pm on 1 Oct and runs to 4:14pm on 15 Oct — 339 hours, 46 readings of heat. The fire is on day 14, so the first 9 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.

Animated map of the Target Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 116 frames at 3 hours a frame. The bar along the bottom is energy released; the moving line is the clock.

Day by day 5 days of record

  1. Map for Thu 1 Oct: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Thu1 Oct

    First readings

    • 16 heat readings — the most of any day
    • Heat from 12:51pm to 3:35pm
    • Spread 2.1 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon
  2. Map for Fri 2 Oct: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Fri2 Oct

    Cooling off

    • 5 heat readings
    • Energy 78% down on the day before
    • Heat from 1:10pm to 2:14pm
    • Spread 0.3 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon
  3. Map for Tue 6 Oct: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Tue6 Oct

    The fiercest day

    • 12 heat readings
    • Energy 5.1 times the day before
    • Heat from 12:57pm to 2:38pm
    • Spread 1.7 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the afternoon
  4. Map for Wed 7 Oct: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Wed7 Oct

    Cooling off

    • 1 heat readings
    • Energy 99% down on the day before
    • Heat from 2:54am to 2:54am
    • Spread 1.0 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn
  5. Map for Thu 15 Oct: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Thu15 Octlatest

    Flaring up

    • 12 heat readings
    • Energy 142.0 times the day before
    • Heat from 1:29pm to 4:14pm
    • Spread 3.0 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the 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. Friday 2 October

    First reported at 2 acres

    2 ac

  2. Friday 2 October

    2 acres on record

    2 ac

  3. Friday 2 October

    Grew to 10 acres

    10 ac

  4. Friday 2 October

    Grew to 20 acres

    20 ac

  5. Friday 2 October

    Grew to 61 acres

    61 ac

No containment figure has been reported for it yet. No crew count has been published for it yet. It has grown from 2 acres when it was first written down to 61 now. Heat was still showing within the last half-day, and the record still lists this fire as active.