Columbia Complex

2006118,790 acresWashington

The Columbia Complex burned 118,790 acres, about 186 square miles, across 3 counties. It began on August 21, 2006.

Watch how it happened

Columbia Complex · 2006

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

Detections1,196satellite 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 (1,196 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 Columbia Complex

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	11%	12,653
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	15%	18,368
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	20%	23,788
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	52%	62,339
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	1.4%	1,642

11% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 12,653 acres; 26% 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

Columbia County	WA	110,412
Garfield County	WA	5,649
Walla Walla County	WA	2,803

Other large fires in Washington in 2006

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