Help the San Francisco Chronicle keep the California Fire Tracker up to date and available to the public.

An interactive map of wildfires burning across the Bay Area and California. Get breaking news and live updates here.

Description: Evacuation orders and warnings lifted on the River Fire. Although the fire is 100 percent contained, firefighting crews will patrol the area.

Description: Evacuation orders and warnings lifted on the Carmel Fire. The fire was located at Cachagua Rd and Carmel Valley Rd, south of Carmel.

Description: All mandatory evacuation orders & fire advisements for surrounding communities have been lifted. The agencies involved in helping to mitigate this fire have effectively entered the final stages of containment and mop up.

Description: Fire resources will continue mopping up and looking for hot spots within the containment lines. Interior portions of the fire will continue to burn and may produce smoke for an extended period of time.

Description: The fire was located at Stagecoach Drive and Piute Meadow Road South of Lake Isabella in Kern County. Evacuation orders have been lifted.

Description: The fire started just east of Highway 10-1 near Crews Road and Oak Spring Circle, east of Gilroy. Evacuation orders have been lifted.

Description: The Grade Fire is located at Boyd Dr and Rd 168, east of Orosi. The cause is under investigation.

Description: Located at E Trimmer Springs Rd and Pine Flat Lake in Fresno County. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Description: Fire crews have made good progress and continue to patrol for hotspots within the interior of the burn area.

Description: The Quail Fire in Solano County just north of Vacaville prompted evacuation orders, which have been lifted. It was declared fully contained on June 10.

Description: The brush fire erupted near the Cogswell Dam and then spread rapidly amid an intense, record-breaking heat wave, prompting evacuation orders for Mt. Wilson Observatory. The cause is under investigation.

Description: This complex fire is burning at South Castle Rock East of Jerkey Meadow Trailhead, Golden Trout Wilderness. The Castle and Shotgun Fires merged into this complex. The Castle Fire is progressing northeast toward Overlook Mtn. and Kern Ridge.

Description: Fire is burning in rugged terrain and dense stands of juniper, mountain mahogany, brush and grasses. Twenty remote ranches with structures are within 1 to 3 miles of the fire. The fire continues to move to the north and northeast.

Description: The Red Salmon Complex is comprised of the Red and Salmon fires that were started by a July 27 lightning storm. They are burning in rugged and remote country within the Trinity Alps Wilderness.

Description: The North Complex of wildfires, which includes the Bear Fire, has grown rapidly and numerouse homes were reportedly on fire.

Description: The Lake Fire started in the Angeles National Forest near Lake Hughes. The fire is moving north and west burning in 100-year-old fuels consisting of Big Cone Douglas Fir, Oak and Gray Pine. All evacuation orders have been lifted, with a few road closures in effect. Crews have been patrolling and mopping up in the northern area of the fire.

Description: Crews will remain to mop up along the fireline and repair impacts on the landscape.

Description: The fire was started by lightning east of Loyalton. Evacuations are lifted. Firefighters are mopping up and making sure no burning logs or remaining hot spots could threaten containment lines.

Description: The lightning-caused complex started on as 37 different fires and has since torched 421,899 acres in the Mendocino National Forest. It became the second largest fire in state history on 9/9/20.

Description: The fire was reported to have ignited in the Big Creek drainage in Sierra National Forest Friday. It has trapped 1,000 people near a Fresno County reservoir.

Description: A few evacuation warnings for the Inskip area have been lifted. Skyway Road is closed south of Butte Meadows at Butte Creek to the Humbug Y. Crews are actively mitigating multiple 100-1,000 acre fires within the unit.

Description: Evacuation orders lifted for all of City of Scotts Valley and unincorporated Scotts Valley. The fire is burning in Southern San Mateo County and Northern Santa Cruz County. The fires continue to actively burn above the marine layer in the heavy timber and thick undergrowth.

Description: Approximately 20 separate fires broken into three zones; the Canyon Zone, the Calaveras Zone, and the Deer Zone. The fires continue to burn in steep inaccessible terrain. Fires are in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus counties.

Description: The fire near Big Sur is sending smoke into the Bay Area. Highway 1 remains closed from Gorda to three miles north of Slate Hot Springs because of rocks and other debris rolling onto the highway.

The California Fire Tracker is the go-to source for critical information. Help The Chronicle keep the tracker up to date and available to the public.

Methodology

Fires are labeled when they are larger than 500 acres, cause damage to property, or when people are injured or killed as a result of the fire.

Fire Perimeters

Fire perimeters are based on infrared and thermal imaging from NASA's MODIS and VIIRS-I products.

The perimeters are intended to provide a picture of the scope and extent of the fires in California, as well as parts of Nevada and Oregon, with the most current data possible. They are an approximation and do not include all areas affected by fire, nor do they indicate with certainty an area was affected. CalFire and others use this data to help identify fires and their hot spots. But because of the distance of the satellites, the nature of the measurements and obfuscation by smoke, the resolution is coarse and not 100 percent accurate.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) displays fire detection data and uses fire and thermal anomalies data compiled via MODIS satellites Terra and Aqua. Thermal information is collected at 1,000-meter spatial resolution. The identification of a "fire" by MODIS does not necessarily mean the entire area represented is on fire. The identification of a fire can be the result of a hot fire in a relatively small area or a cooler fire over a larger area. At this time, there is no way to discriminate between these two possibilities.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS-I) provides data from sensors aboard the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite. The 375-meter spatial resolution provides a greater response over fires of relatively small areas and provides improved mapping of large fire perimeters. VIIRS-I also has improved nighttime performance.

Hot Spots

Hot spots are locations identified by satellite analysts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The hot spots are an approximation and do not include all areas affected by fire, nor do they indicate with certainty an area was affected. CalFire and others use this same data to help identify fires and their hot spots. But because of the distance of the satellites, the nature of the measurements and obfuscation by smoke, the resolution is coarse and not 100% accurate.

NOAA's Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke Product (HMS) is based on locations of fires and significant smoke plumes detected by meteorological satellites. Hot spots are updated between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. every 30 minutes, and otherwise as time permits. Hot spots should be considered points with no radius or resolution. The current map may contain hot spots up to 48 hours old.