East Amarillo Complex

2006593,293 acresTexas

The East Amarillo Complex burned 593,293 acres, about 927 square miles, across 9 counties. It began on March 12, 2006.

Watch how it happened

East Amarillo 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

Detections457satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

Burn severityHigh, Moderate, Low, Unburned to low, Increased greenness

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Houston, to scale640 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (457 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 East Amarillo Complex

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	0.1%	692
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	8.7%	51,826
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	75%	445,471
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	16%	94,131
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	768
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	0.1%	405

under 1% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 692 acres; 9% 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

Roberts County	TX	209,547
Gray County	TX	178,397
Wheeler County	TX	61,606
Hutchinson County	TX	52,336
Carson County	TX	30,689
Donley County	TX	30,003
Collingsworth County	TX	25,260
Hemphill County	TX	4,516
Ochiltree County	TX	1,006

Other large fires in Texas in 2006

Mcdonald Fire92,781 acres
Cole Fire39,443 acres
Rocker B Fire37,379 acres
Carbon Fire32,990 acres
Buckle L 2 Fire25,166 acres

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