Plains Fire (California)
True color
Fire (SWIR)
Infrared / SWIR (right): sees through smoke.
🟢 green = vegetation
🟤 red/brown = burned
🟠 orange = active fire
Imagery: Sentinel-2 (Copernicus). Drag to compare smoke vs. infrared.
Heat detections: NASA FIRMS (last 48h).
Quick facts
- Location
- 21 Miles NW from McKittrick, CA
- Personnel
- 119
- Complexity
- Type 3 Incident
- Fuel
- Short Grass (1 foot)
- Behavior
- Minimal
- Jurisdiction
- Private land
Spanning 2,588 acres with an average daily growth of approximately 1,294 acres per day over two days of burning, the Plains Fire is now fully contained at 100 percent in San Luis Obispo County, California, located 21 miles northwest of McKittrick and near Santa Margarita. Fire behavior is currently minimal within short grass fuels standing about one foot tall on private land.
A Type 3 Incident drawing 119 personnel, the response is managed by a Type 4 Incident Commander. Operations have accumulated a total cost of $200,000.
This event unfolds against a broader backdrop where 2,893,377 hectares have burned across the country so far in 2026, marking a figure 47% below the two-decade average for a region where the typical fire season runs from June to October.
In context
This wildfire burned in California for 2 days. In total it burned about 2,588 acres — around 10 km².
In the Northern Hemisphere, wildfire activity usually peaks during the warm, dry months — roughly May through October.
The bigger picture in United States
Across United States, roughly 3,177,542 hectares have burned so far in 2026 — 42% below the two-decade average. Data from Copernicus GWIS.
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