George Fire

200562,942 acresAlaska

The George Fire burned 62,942 acres, about 98 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on July 31, 2005.

Watch how it happened

George 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

Detections826satellite 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 (826 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 George Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	41%	26,095
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	25%	15,979
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	13%	8,101
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	13%	8,151
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.3%	174
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	7.1%	4,442

41% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 26,095 acres; 67% 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

Bethel Census Area	AK	59,043
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	AK	3,939

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.