La Brea Fire
200984,301 acresCalifornia
The La Brea Fire burned 84,301 acres, about 132 square miles, across Santa Barbara County. It began on August 8, 2009.
Watch how it happenedLa Brea Fire · 2009
How it happened
Watch it burn in the order satellites saw it, coloured by how severely each place burned.
How severely it burned
Burn severity inside the final perimeter, classified from Landsat images taken before and after the fire.
| Severity | Share | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered | 17% | 14,609 |
| Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive | 30% | 25,120 |
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 32% | 26,590 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 17% | 14,360 |
| Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before | 4.3% | 3,623 |
17% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 14,609 acres; 47% 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.
| Santa Barbara County | CA | 84,216 |
Other large fires in California in 2009
- Station Fire165,285 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.