Ham Lake Fire

200770,575 acresMinnesota

The Ham Lake Fire burned 70,575 acres, about 110 square miles, across Cook County. It began on May 5, 2007.

Watch how it happened

Ham Lake Fire · 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
Detections95satellite fire pixels

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 Ham Lake Fire
Burn severity by class
SeverityShareAcres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered6.2%4,410
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive26%18,451
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive29%20,174
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change27%19,303
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before0.5%361
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images11%7,877

6% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 4,410 acres; 32% 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
Cook CountyMN34,749

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