Colorado Creek Fire

200289,032 acresAlaska

The Colorado Creek Fire burned 89,032 acres, about 139 square miles, across Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. It began on May 26, 2002.

Watch how it happened

Colorado Creek Fire · 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

Detections411satellite 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 (411 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 Colorado Creek Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	25%	22,475
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	33%	29,332
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	22%	19,222
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	10%	9,297
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	9.7%	8,674

25% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 22,475 acres; 58% 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

Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	AK	89,061

Other large fires in Alaska in 2002

Geskakmina Lake Fire260,185 acres
Reindeer Fire225,602 acres
Vinasale Fire175,425 acres
Yetna River Fire156,079 acres
Sischu Fire127,466 acres
Moose Lake Fire118,836 acres
Milepost 78 Fire107,366 acres
Long Creek Fire73,238 acres

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