Where lightning has hit, where fires are burning, and how dry the land is.

Is the data fresh?

Top right: a green dot means up to date (new data every 10 minutes). An amber dot and a banner mean the data is late, so recent lightning may be missing.

Lightning

Each glow is a strike seen by satellite. Color is time since it struck: bright white-blue is the last hour, fading to purple over 3 days. Size is the size of the flash, not the fire risk. New strikes flash as they arrive. Positions are accurate to within a few miles.

Dry lightning

An amber ring around a strike means it was dry: less than 0.1 inch of rain fell within 3 miles in the hour it struck and the two hours after. Dry lightning is the kind most likely to start fires, because nothing wets the fuels. The ring is faint while the reading is still coming in and solid after about 3 hours. Zoomed out to the whole region, dry strikes are an amber dot instead of a ring (once the reading is final), so lone dry strikes still stand out. Rain comes from NOAA's MRMS (radar blended with rain gauges and a weather model); where radar coverage is thin (much of eastern Oregon and northeastern California) the popup says so. Tap a strike for its reading.

Storm motion

During a storm, a row of arrowheads flows out ahead of each moving storm, the way it's heading (faster storms flow faster); zoomed in, it shows the speed. Tap it for details. We work it out every 10 minutes from where the storm's lightning struck over the last hour. Only clear movement gets an arrow (storms that sit still, merge or split don't), and storms can turn, split or fade, so it's a guide, not a forecast. With My location on, "Near you" says when a storm within 50 miles is heading your way.

Look for smoke: wildfire cameras

Strike, fire and heat-detection popups link to the public wildfire camera map for that spot, so you can look for smoke yourself: ALERTCalifornia (UC San Diego) in California, opened at the spot, and ALERTWest (the University of Oregon's and other university cameras) in Oregon, opened at its start page. Near the state line you get both. They open in a new tab on the camera networks' own sites; Strikewatch doesn't show or store their pictures.

New since your last visit

Come back after half an hour or more and the status card says what arrived while you were away: strikes (and how many were dry), new fires and satellite heat detections. Tap it to ring them on the map; tap again to hide the rings, or × to close the line. The time of your last visit stays in this browser only.

Fires

Flame badges are wildfires reported by fire agencies. Tap one for its name, size and containment.

Gold ring, labelled NEW: reported in the last 24 hours. The ones to watch.

Orange ring: still burning; the label shows how much is contained.

Small and grey: 100% contained or declared out.

Bolt on the badge: the fire agency lists it as lightning-caused. Tap it to see a dotted line to the strike that most likely started it: the nearest one seen within 9 miles in the 14 days before it was reported. Two or more days between them means a holdover: it may have smoldered unseen.

Orange outline: the fire's mapped burned area (perimeter), as the agencies last mapped it; grey once contained. Tap inside for its size and when it was mapped.

Small dots: a satellite saw unusual heat. White-hot means seen in the last few hours, fading to dark red over 3 days. Often a fire, sometimes a controlled burn or industry. Fresh heat near recent lightning is worth watching.

Fuel dryness

How dry the dead wood and brush are (100-hour fuel moisture, averaged over each 10 km square): deep red-orange is very dry, blue-grey is wet. Lightning starts fires more easily where fuels are dry, but rain with the storm, what's on the ground and where a strike lands matter too, so this is a guide, not a forecast. It switches itself on when there has been no lightning for 6 hours, until you switch it yourself under Layers.

Switch the key to 3-day trend to see how dryness changed instead: amber squares got drier over the last 3 days, blue ones wetter, grey ones stayed about the same (under 1 point). Fuels drying day after day is what sets up lightning fires. Tap a square for its change, and the last day's. The fuel data runs about 2 days behind.

Smoke

A wispy tan haze is smoke traced by NOAA analysts on satellite images over the last 36 hours: the denser the smoke, the more solid the haze; older plumes are fainter. It shows from about county zoom in. Smoke near a recent strike can be the first sign of a new fire, and smoke can hide fires from the heat-detecting satellites. It's a human analysis done in batches through the day, so it lags, and thin smoke or smoke under cloud can be missed. Tap the haze for when it was seen.

Lightning history (since 2018)

Switch on Lightning history under Layers to see where lightning struck in any year since 2018, or in an average year: the more strikes in a 10 km square, the stronger its purple. Hollow orange rings are that year's lightning-caused fires, bigger for more acres burned. Tap a square or a ring for its numbers. These are real satellite records (NOAA GOES) and fire agency records, not estimates. The Replay tab compares this season with earlier years; tap a year there to show it on the map.

Replay

The Replay tab plays the last 7 days of lightning and fires, sped up, and the August 2020 lightning siege from real satellite records (Aug 15–21, 2020). Strikes flash as they arrive and fade over the next hours; orange rings are fires as they were reported, bigger for more acres. Play or pause, drag the timeline (its bars show when the storms were), and change the speed. A replay is marked REPLAY and hides the live map until you close it (✕).

Aerial photos

Switch on Aerial photos under Layers to see the ground itself: forest, meadows, burn scars, roads and buildings, in 2D or draped over the terrain in 3D. They come from the USGS (mostly USDA photos taken 2017–2021, so recent fires may not show) and are dimmed so lightning and fires stay the brightest things on the map.

Lightning status

The line under the top bar says what the sky is doing: lightning now, when and where the last strike was, or how many days it has been quiet. If the satellite data is late, it says so instead. Tap it for details and a button that takes you to the storm or the last strike.

Red Flag Warnings (National Weather Service)

Red shading: a Red Flag Warning, critical fire weather happening now or very soon (strong wind with low humidity, or dry lightning). Dashed red outline: a Fire Weather Watch, the same conditions possible in the next day or two. Tap an area for the NWS wording and a link to the full text. When a warning covers part of the region, the status line says so.

Dry thunderstorm outlook (National Weather Service)

Pale, sparse hatching: isolated dry thunderstorms forecast: lightning with little rain, the kind most likely to start fires.

Brighter, dense hatching: scattered dry thunderstorms, more of them.

Choose Today, Tomorrow or Days 3–8 in the panel. It is a forecast, not a warning, and ordinary wet thunderstorms can still bring lightning.

Find, locate, share

Search (magnifier, top right) finds towns, peaks and street addresses. My location (target button) shows where you are and what's near you: lightning within 25 miles today, the nearest active fire, and whether you're in a Red Flag Warning. Your location stays on your device. Share sends a link to the view on screen; with a popup open, the link opens that popup too.

Day and Night

On Auto, the map follows the sun: the light Day map from sunrise to sunset where you're looking, the dark Night map after dark, switching by itself. Choose Day or Night under Map style in the panel to keep one. By day, lightning shows in deep blues that fade to lilac as strikes age.

The panel

Choose how far back to show lightning (1 hour to 3 days), switch layers, and check each data source. Tap anything on the map for details. 3D tilts the map to show the terrain. Replay has the lightning season so far and every year since 2018.

Not an official warning. Call 911 in an emergency. For evacuations, follow your county and local fire agencies.