Fish Creek Complex (Thompson Creek)

200333,782 acresMontana

The Fish Creek Complex (Thompson Creek) burned 33,782 acres, about 53 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on August 10, 2003.

Watch how it happened

Fish Creek Complex (Thompson Creek) · 2003

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

Detections391satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Boston, to scale48 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (391 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 Fish Creek Complex (Thompson Creek)

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	18%	6,227
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	24%	8,127
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	31%	10,507
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	25%	8,513
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	1.2%	408

18% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 6,227 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.

Acres burned by county

Mineral County	MT	28,811
Missoula County	MT	4,967

Other large fires in Montana in 2003

Missouri Breaks Complex137,971 acres
Robert Fire54,531 acres
Wedge Canyon Fire51,995 acres
Hobble Fire38,340 acres
Lincoln Complex (Snowbank)36,976 acres
Little Salmon Creek Fire33,042 acres
Littlehawk Fire27,920 acres
Bartlett Mountain Fire27,613 acres

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