Taylor Highway Complex (Chicken)

2004337,961 acresAlaska

The Taylor Highway Complex (Chicken) burned 337,961 acres, about 528 square miles, across Southeast Fairbanks Census Area. It began on June 15, 2004.

Watch how it happened

Taylor Highway Complex (Chicken) · 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

Detections3,340satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Los Angeles, to scale470 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (3,340 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 Taylor Highway Complex (Chicken)

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	12%	39,485
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	27%	90,549
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	16%	54,191
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	11%	37,681
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.5%	1,653
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	34%	114,402

12% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 39,485 acres; 38% 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

Southeast Fairbanks Census Area	AK	338,193

Other large fires in Alaska in 2004

Boundary Fire537,728 acres
Dall City Fire530,540 acres
Taylor Highway Complex (Billy Creek)460,335 acres
North Dag Fire429,332 acres
Pingo Fire353,275 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.