Wilson Complex (Rawhide)

200550,832 acresNevada

The Wilson Complex (Rawhide) burned 50,832 acres, about 79 square miles, across Elko County. It began on July 15, 2005.

Watch how it happened

Wilson Complex (Rawhide) · 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

Detections108satellite 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 (108 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 Wilson Complex (Rawhide)

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	0.5%	249
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	29%	14,621
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	52%	26,493
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	18%	9,368
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.2%	100

under 1% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 249 acres; 29% 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

Elko County	NV	50,876

Other large fires in Nevada in 2005

Southern Nevada Complex (Duzak)327,383 acres
Delamar Fire172,427 acres
Southern Nevada Complex (Meadow Valley)150,067 acres
Esmeralda Fire101,044 acres
Fork Fire43,701 acres
Goodsprings Fire33,441 acres
Southern Nevada Complex (Tramp)27,580 acres

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