Sheenjek Fire

200956,266 acresAlaska

The Sheenjek Fire burned 56,266 acres, about 88 square miles, across Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. It began on July 2, 2009.

Watch how it happened

Sheenjek Fire · 2009

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

Detections1,280satellite 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 (1,280 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 Sheenjek Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	14%	8,040
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	26%	14,503
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	27%	14,962
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	20%	11,003
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	1.1%	601
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	13%	7,157

14% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 8,040 acres; 40% 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

Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	AK	56,293

Other large fires in Alaska in 2009

Railbelt Complex (Minto Flats South)523,418 acres
Big Creek Fire174,888 acres
Tonclonukna Creek Fire158,922 acres
Titna River Fire157,330 acres
Nowitna Fire134,822 acres
Zitziana Fire120,312 acres
Wood River 1 Fire120,046 acres
Railbelt Complex (Rex Creek)87,805 acres

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