Sheep Fire

2006152,997 acresNevada

The Sheep Fire burned 152,997 acres, about 239 square miles, across 3 counties. It began on September 3, 2006.

Watch how it happened

Sheep Fire · 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

Detections265satellite 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 (265 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 Sheep Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	28%	43,512
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	65%	99,181
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	6.7%	10,212
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	90

No part of the fire was classed as high severity; 28% burned at moderate 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	89,073
Eureka County	NV	33,370
Lander County	NV	30,675

Other large fires in Nevada in 2006

Winters Fire242,689 acres
Charleston Fire153,976 acres
Amazon Fire105,232 acres
Suzie Fire81,707 acres
Basco Fire47,628 acres
Marble Fire39,352 acres
Sage Fire28,086 acres

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