Bitterroot Fire Use Complex (Magruder Mtn 1)

200725,030 acresIdaho and Montana

The Bitterroot Fire Use Complex (Magruder Mtn 1) burned 25,030 acres, about 39 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on July 6, 2007.

Watch how it happened

Bitterroot Fire Use Complex (Magruder Mtn 1) · 2007

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

Detections432satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Manhattan, to scale23 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (432 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 Bitterroot Fire Use Complex (Magruder Mtn 1)

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	22%	5,525
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	28%	6,926
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	32%	7,915
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	12%	3,002
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.6%	159
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	6.0%	1,503

22% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 5,525 acres; 50% 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

Idaho County	ID	24,873
Ravalli County	MT	159

Other large fires in Idaho and Montana in 2007

Murphy Complex567,212 acres
East Zone Complex (Raines)318,567 acres
Cascade Complex (Monumental)317,014 acres
Rattlesnake Fire102,464 acres
Chippy Creek Fire95,636 acres
Battle Creek Complex (Battle Creek)79,057 acres
Black Pine 2 Fire69,896 acres
Sawmill Complex (Wyman 2)68,250 acres

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