Moonlight Fire

200765,726 acresCalifornia

The Moonlight Fire burned 65,726 acres, about 103 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on September 3, 2007.

Watch how it happened

Moonlight 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

Detections833satellite 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 (833 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 Moonlight Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	44%	28,773
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	25%	16,546
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	21%	13,828
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	9.6%	6,304
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.4%	274

44% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 28,773 acres; 69% 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

Plumas County	CA	65,287
Lassen County	CA	430

Other large fires in California in 2007

Zaca Fire242,003 acres
Witch Fire167,415 acres
Harris Fire90,374 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.