2026 wildfire Jefferson County, Oregon

Brewer

Drone heat along the daily fire perimeter, heat mapped outside it for spot fires, and a crewed aircraft's own flights turned into the same map set.

Nights of maps: 6; July 24 to August 1
Map sets delivered: 8; From two flying teams
Heat sources on the busiest map: 3,581; Division Kilo and Alpha, night of July 24
Acres on the incident record: 70,821; Read September 13, 2026

The delivered topographic map sheet for Divisions Kilo and Alpha of the Brewer fire, a band of pink heat sources tracing the red daily fire perimeter across open hills, the legend and title block at the left. — Hummingbird Drones' topographic sheet for Divisions Kilo and Alpha: 780 isolated heat sources in pink tracing the incident's daily fire perimeter in red, with a 100 foot mop up buffer. The heat detections date this flight to the night of July 24; the sheet keeps the date typed for it, July 25. Open the PDF the incident received

Mapped from both kinds of aircraft

Brewer was reported on July 15 in Jefferson County, with a natural cause on the record. Hummingbird Drones flew it first, on the night of July 24, mapping the perimeter and the heat within 100 feet of it for Divisions Kilo and Alpha.

The note on the record for those maps is the honest kind. There was a lot of heat on the landscape, so the heat data should be read for density, for updating the perimeter and for spot fires, because a small single hot spot can hide inside the heat around it.

Outside the line

Two nights later the objective changed to spot fire mapping in Divisions D, A and K, and a look at a proposed hand line in Division D. That map carries heat only outside the perimeter, which is where a spot fire is found. The night after, a drone flew overwatch on a burn operation in Division F and mapped heat in Divisions A and K, and the note on that record says the scattered heat was used to update the perimeter.

The crewed flights, on the same maps

The Oregon Department of Forestry’s crewed infrared aircraft flew Brewer too. The Collaborative’s crewed intake read those flights from the perimeters the aircraft’s crew posted to Intterra, and in one case took the perimeter straight from the flight crew’s own file, and turned each into the same standardized map set a drone gets, drawn in red because a crewed aircraft flew it. Most of the drone maps also carried the incident’s daily fire perimeter, so the pink heat sat against the perimeter the incident was using.

A date the detections corrected

Four of the drone map sets on Brewer were typed one night later than they were flown. The archive files each one under the night its own heat detections fall in, and the table below marks them.

What the Collaborative did

Two flying teams. The system did the rest.

Every map set on this fire came back as two thermal map sheets, one on aerial imagery and one on a topographic base, with a daily log, a Google Earth file and the GIS layers, on the flying organization’s own template.

48 files in the public archive Filed by night under the folder and file names the interagency share uses, free for anyone to open.
4 map sets carry the daily fire perimeter The incident’s own interagency perimeter, pulled onto the map in red beside the drone’s pink heat.
3 crewed flights mapped A crewed infrared aircraft’s perimeter, turned into the same standardized map set a drone flight gets.
60 min median, upload to approved maps Across 6 map sets with both times on the record, including the pilot’s own review before approving.
100 ft mop up buffers drawn Dashed lines a set distance in from the perimeter, measured along the ground, so a crew can see which heat sits close to the edge.

Delivered to the incident

More thermal map sheets from Brewer

Pink is a drone Red came from elsewhere How to read the map

An aerial map sheet of dark, rugged terrain with a large red crewed perimeter and no pink, the Oregon Department of Forestry seal in the title block. — The Oregon Department of Forestry's crewed infrared flight on the night of July 28, a de Havilland Twin Otter: the crew's perimeter in red, because a crewed aircraft flew it, turned into the same map set a drone flight gets. The note on the record says only the hottest portions were flown. Open the PDF

A topographic map sheet of the whole Brewer fire, the red daily fire perimeter with small pink heat sources scattered just outside it. — Hummingbird Drones' sheet for the night of July 26, flown for spot fires: 172 isolated heat sources, all of them outside the line. The note on the record says the accuracy is very high for every spot outside the line. Open the PDF

A topographic map sheet with a large red crewed perimeter across the Brewer fire and no pink. — The next crewed flight, on the night of July 29, on the topographic base. The note on the record: growing south. Open the PDF

The archive, night by night

Every map set

8 map sets over 6 nights

One row per map set, grouped by night. A flight after midnight counts with the night before it, and the archive files each night under the next day's date, the operational period its maps served. Where two flights covered the same ground in one night, a heat source can appear on both maps, so the nightly numbers are not added into a trend.

Hummingbird Drones
Oregon Department of Forestry

Night	Flown	Area	Heat sources	Possible heat	Mop up buffer	Archive
July 24	9:30 pm	Division Kilo and Alpha^*	780	0	100 ft	Open the night
	9:30 pm	Division Kilo and Alpha^*	780	0	100 ft
	9:30 pm	Division Kilo and Alpha^*	3,581	0	100 ft
July 26	9:45 pm	Division D, A and K^*	172	0	None	Open the night
July 27	9:45 pm	Division F	1,996	0	100 ft	Open the night
July 28	Not shown^†	Crewed infrared flight	Perimeter only		None	Open the night
July 29	Not shown^†	Crewed infrared flight	Perimeter only		None	Open the night
August 1	Not shown^†	Crewed infrared flight	Perimeter only		None	Open the night

Counted September 13, 2026 from the submission records and the public archive.

1 record on this fire is not counted because it was never approved for release.
* The pilot typed a different night for this flight. The heat detections’ own timestamps place it on the night shown, which is where the archive files it; the sheet itself keeps the typed date.
† The clock is not shown for a crewed flight: crewed records written before August 4, 2026 stored a UTC time as Pacific time, so their clock reads seven hours off. The night is right. The crewed map sets on this record carry the aircraft's heat perimeter only, so their rows show no heat sources.

Where the images came from

Every sheet on this page is the PDF delivered to the incident and published in the public archive, rendered as an image. The name of the pilot printed in each title block is covered, because this site names organizations, not people.
The objectives and notes quoted on this page are from the submission records.
The incident record is the interagency record in WFIGS, read September 13, 2026.

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