Boundary Fire

2004537,728 acresAlaska

The Boundary Fire burned 537,728 acres, about 840 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on June 13, 2004.

Watch how it happened

Boundary Fire · 2004

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

Detections4,749satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Houston, to scale640 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (4,749 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 Boundary Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	21%	110,796
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	28%	149,324
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	16%	83,429
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	7.7%	41,393
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	3.5%	19,076
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	25%	133,710

21% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 110,796 acres; 48% 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

Fairbanks North Star Borough	AK	327,289
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	AK	210,877

Other large fires in Alaska in 2004

Dall City Fire530,540 acres
Taylor Highway Complex (Billy Creek)460,335 acres
North Dag Fire429,332 acres
Pingo Fire353,275 acres
Taylor Highway Complex (Chicken)337,961 acres
Winter Trail Fire295,750 acres
Edwards Creek Fire286,038 acres
Taylor Highway Complex (Porcupine)267,550 acres

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