Chitanatala Mountains Fire

200539,066 acresAlaska

The Chitanatala Mountains Fire burned 39,066 acres, about 61 square miles, across Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. It began on August 9, 2005.

Watch how it happened

Chitanatala Mountains Fire · 2005

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

Detections793satellite 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 (793 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 Chitanatala Mountains Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	38%	14,952
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	15%	5,990
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	5.9%	2,317
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	6.6%	2,571
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	1.0%	392
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	33%	12,844

38% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 14,952 acres; 54% 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	39,091

Other large fires in Alaska in 2005

Salmon Fork Fire255,430 acres
Old Dummy Fire238,884 acres
Holtnatkatna Creek Fire204,464 acres
North Bonanza Fire190,620 acres
Little Mud 2 Fire187,905 acres
Beaver Creek Fire184,035 acres
Chapman Creek Fire165,363 acres
Kandik River Fire156,377 acres

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