Awatchfire

Skagit County, Washington

Thunder Creek Fire

Burning 18.8 miles east of Marblemount and 26.9 miles east of Rockport, since Saturday 22 August.

Map of Washington. The Thunder Creek Fire burns 67 miles from Bellingham and 89 miles from Seattle, and 136 miles from the state capital, Olympia.
The fire sits 67 miles from Bellingham and 89 miles from Seattle.

715

acres burned so far — about 1.1 square miles

53

days burning so far

0%

of the perimeter held

The picture as of 9:09am today

The Thunder Creek Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. Nothing has given off fresh heat for 1062 hours.

No fresh look at this fire for 1062 hours. Everything on the map below was seen before then.

Shaded relief map of the Thunder 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

1062hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 3:25am on Tuesday, local time.

0readings

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

17.1miles

is how close the heat has come to Marblemount 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 Rockport is 25.2 miles, None in the last day.

2.0miles

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

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 19.9 miles from the fire: 62°F, air at 48% humidity, a 5 mph wind out of the south.

How it got here

Eight days of record on a day-55 fire

The record here begins at 10:34am on 22 Aug and runs to 3:24am on 1 Sep — 233 hours, 254 readings of heat. The fire is on day 55, so the first 47 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 Thunder Creek Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 80 frames at 3 hours a frame. The bar along the bottom is energy released; the moving line is the clock.

Day by day 8 days of record

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

    Sat22 Aug

    First readings

    • 12 heat readings
    • Heat from 10:34am to 2:21pm
    • Spread 0.6 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the morning and afternoon
  2. Map for Mon 24 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Mon24 Aug

    Holding

    • 33 heat readings
    • Energy 11% down on the day before
    • Heat from 2:13am to 9:19pm
    • Spread 0.8 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn, afternoon and night
  3. Map for Tue 25 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Tue25 Aug

    The fiercest day

    • 77 heat readings
    • Energy 15.1 times the day before
    • Heat from 2:13am to 9:59pm
    • Spread 2.0 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn, morning, afternoon, evening and night
  4. Map for Wed 26 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Wed26 Aug

    Cooling off

    • 102 heat readings — the most of any day
    • Energy 70% down on the day before
    • Heat from 1:56am to 9:00pm
    • Spread 2.0 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn, afternoon and night
  5. Map for Thu 27 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Thu27 Aug

    Cooling off

    • 23 heat readings
    • Energy 96% down on the day before
    • Heat from 2:22am to 4:38am
    • Spread 1.3 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn
  6. Map for Fri 28 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Fri28 Aug

    Flaring up

    • 4 heat readings
    • Energy 7.9 times the day before
    • Heat from 3:00am to 3:22pm
    • Spread 1.4 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn and afternoon
  7. Map for Mon 31 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Mon31 Aug

    Cooling off

    • 1 heat readings
    • Energy 100% down on the day before
    • Heat from 3:24am to 3:24am
    • Spread 0.7 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn
  8. Map for Tue 1 Sep: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Tue1 Seplatest

    Flaring up

    • 2 heat readings
    • Energy 2.0 times the day before
    • Heat from 3:24am to 3:24am
    • Spread 0.5 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. Saturday 22 August

    First reported at 50 acres

    50 ac

  2. Sunday 23 August

    50 acres on record

    50 ac

  3. Wednesday 26 August

    Grew to 430 acres

    430 ac

  4. Sunday 30 August

    Grew to 648 acres

    648 ac

  5. Tuesday 1 September

    Grew to 950 acres — containment 0%

    950 ac · 0% held

  6. Thursday 10 September

    Revised to 715 acres

    715 ac · 0% held

None of the perimeter is being reported as held. No crew count has been published for it yet. It has grown from 50 acres when it was first written down to 715 now. Nothing has looked at it for 1062 hours, and the record still lists it as active.