Papa Willie Creek Fire

2005127,044 acresAlaska

The Papa Willie Creek Fire burned 127,044 acres, about 199 square miles, across Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. It began on July 26, 2005.

Watch how it happened

Papa Willie Creek 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

Detections1,274satellite 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 (1,274 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 Papa Willie Creek Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	9.2%	11,734
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	37%	47,584
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	27%	33,977
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	16%	20,752
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.6%	797
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	9.6%	12,201

9% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 11,734 acres; 47% 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	127,132

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.