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.

430

acres burned so far — about 0.7 square miles

5

days burning so far

—

no share of the perimeter reported held yet

The picture as of 1:52pm today

The Thunder Creek Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. The last heat was seen 11 hours ago.

No fresh look at this fire for 11 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

11hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 3:00am on Friday, local time.

1readings

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 19.1 miles from it, and the closest this fire has come to Rockport is 25.2 miles, 27.1 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.

Smoke has been recorded lying over this ground 40 times so far. The thickest of it was thick between 8:00am and 10:00am local time.

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: 79°F, air at 26% humidity, a 6 mph wind out of the north.

How it got here

Six days of record on a day-7 fire

The record here begins at 10:34am on 22 Aug and runs to 3:00am on 28 Aug — 136 hours, 248 readings of heat. The fire is on day 7, so the first day is 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, 48 frames at 3 hours a frame. The bar along the bottom is energy released; the moving line is the clock.

Day by day 6 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 Auglatest

    Cooling off

    • 1 heat readings
    • Energy 97% down on the day before
    • Heat from 3:00am to 3:00am
    • Spread 0.3 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn

No containment figure has been reported for it yet. No crew count has been published for it yet. It has grown from 50 acres when it was first written down to 430 now. Nothing has looked at it for 11 hours, and the record still lists it as active.