Fire’s Footprint on Santa Rosa Island

On May 15, 2026, a fire was spotted from aircraft on the southeastern side of Santa Rosa Island, part of California’s Channel Islands National Park. The blaze spread over the next several days, ultimately burning 18,379 acres (7,438 hectares)—about one-third of the island. These images show the expansion of the fire’s burned area between May 16 (left), the day after it was discovered, and May 24 (right), after the fire’s growth had stabilized . The Landsat satellite images are false-color to help distinguish burned areas (brown) from healthy vegetation (green). Officials reported the fire was 97 percent contained by the evening of May 26. NASA tools utilizing satellite observations, namely FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System) and the Fire Event Explorer , show how the fire spread to the north and east over several days. As it advanced, it consumed areas of grassland, coastal sage scrub, and island chaparral . Santa Rosa Island, like the other Channel Islands, is known for its diversity of plant and animal species, some of them rare. Observers were concerned that the fire threatened the island’s Torrey pines , a rare type of tree that in the United States grows naturally only on the northeastern coast of Santa Rosa Island and near San Diego. Initial post-fire surveys by firefighters and unmanned aircraft indicated the Torrey pine stand remained largely intact. The fire mostly burned at lower intensity through the pine areas and spared the canopy. …