Blackjack Bay Complex

2002107,047 acresFlorida and Georgia

The Blackjack Bay Complex burned 107,047 acres, about 167 square miles, across 4 counties. It began on May 3, 2002.

Watch how it happened

Blackjack Bay Complex · 2002

How it happened

Watch it burn in the order satellites saw it, coloured by how severely each place burned.

About this replay

Date (UTC)—Historical replay

Burned so far—acres

High severity—of the area so far

Detections282satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

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

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (282 MODIS) inside the final perimeter; each place takes the time of its nearest detection, so the order is satellite-observed but interpolated between passes, roughly every 12 hours. Severity: Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS, U.S. Forest Service), mapped from Landsat after the fire.

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 Blackjack Bay Complex

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	1.8%	1,906
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	18%	19,792
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	43%	45,640
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	36%	38,100
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	1.1%	1,129
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	0.4%	480

2% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 1,906 acres; 20% 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.

Acres burned by county

Ware County	GA	97,012
Clinch County	GA	4,442
Charlton County	GA	3,025
Baker County	FL	2,608

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