Fifty-Eight Fire
199694,832 acresCalifornia
The Fifty-Eight Fire burned 94,832 acres, about 148 square miles, across San Luis Obispo County. It began on August 15, 1996.
Watch how it happenedFifty-Eight Fire · 1996
How it happened
See how severely each place burned, revealed outward from where it started.
How severely it burned
Burn severity inside the final perimeter, classified from Landsat images taken before and after the fire.
| Severity | Share | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered | 8.4% | 7,974 |
| Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive | 33% | 31,761 |
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 38% | 35,886 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 20% | 18,515 |
| Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before | 0.7% | 664 |
8% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 7,974 acres; 42% burned at moderate or high 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.
| San Luis Obispo County | CA | 94,698 |
Other large fires in California in 1996
- Fork Fire83,147 acres
- Ackerson Complex (Ackerson)58,227 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.