Freeway Complex

200829,328 acresCalifornia

The Freeway Complex burned 29,328 acres, about 46 square miles, across 4 counties. It began on November 15, 2008.

Watch how it happened

Freeway Complex · 2008

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

Detections138satellite 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 (138 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 Freeway Complex

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	3.1%	916
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	41%	11,993
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	46%	13,417
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	10%	2,976
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	26

3% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 916 acres; 44% 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

Orange County	CA	15,183
San Bernardino County	CA	11,972
Los Angeles County	CA	1,802
Riverside County	CA	391

Other large fires in California in 2008

Basin Complex164,453 acres
Siskiyou-Blue 2 Complex (Blue 2)100,756 acres
Yolla Bolly Complex (Iron)94,807 acres
Panther Fire71,402 acres
Basin Complex (Indians)59,072 acres
Btu Lightning Complex (Long Branch-Jack)52,072 acres
Bear Wallow Complex (Ukonom)39,999 acres
Shu Lightning Complex (Moon)36,479 acres

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