Unnamed Fire

198766,322 acresKentucky

The Unnamed Fire burned 66,322 acres, about 104 square miles, across 4 counties. It began on November 13, 1987.

Watch how it happened

Unnamed Fire · 1987

How it happened

See how severely each place burned, revealed outward from where it started.

About this replay

IgnitionNovember 13, 1987Historical replay — order not recorded

Final area66,322 ac

Revealed—

Counties4

Fire milestones

Burn severityHigh, Moderate, Low, Unburned to low, Increased greenness

Washington, D.C., to scale61 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Severity: Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS, U.S. Forest Service), mapped from Landsat after the fire. Satellite fire detections begin in November 2000, so the order it burned in is not recorded and the map is revealed outward from the reported origin.

How severely it burned

Burn severity inside the final perimeter, classified from Landsat images taken before and after the fire.

Map of burn severity across the Unnamed Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	6.5%	4,339
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	75%	49,981
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	18%	12,002

No part of the fire was classed as high severity; 7% burned at moderate severity.

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (U.S. Geological Survey and USDA Forest Service). Classes come from the change in a Landsat burn index (dNBR) between images before and after the fire; acres are each class’s share of the fire’s mapped area.

Where it burned

Acres inside each county, measured from the satellite-mapped perimeter.

Acres burned by county

Floyd County	KY	51,350
Knott County	KY	8,836
Pike County	KY	5,921
Letcher County	KY	236

Other large fires in Kentucky in 1987

Unnamed Fire66,160 acres
Unnamed Fire41,774 acres
Unnamed Fire38,296 acres
Unnamed Fire32,544 acres

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Other.