Harris Fire

200790,374 acresCalifornia

The Harris Fire burned 90,374 acres, about 141 square miles, across San Diego County. It began on October 21, 2007.

Watch how it happened

Harris 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

Detections464satellite 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 (464 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 Harris Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	13%	11,369
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	18%	16,552
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	24%	21,723
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	42%	38,343
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	2.6%	2,386

13% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 11,369 acres; 31% 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

San Diego County	CA	90,260

Other large fires in California in 2007

Zaca Fire242,003 acres
Witch Fire167,415 acres
Moonlight Fire65,726 acres
Poomacha Fire47,467 acres
Buckweed Fire41,315 acres
Ranch Fire37,006 acres
Inyo Complex (Oak)28,426 acres
Santiago Fire27,585 acres

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