Cooper Mountain Ranch Fire

2011157,828 acresTexas

The Cooper Mountain Ranch Fire burned 157,828 acres, about 247 square miles, across 4 counties. It began on April 11, 2011.

Watch how it happened

Cooper Mountain Ranch Fire · 2011

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

Detections349satellite 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 (349 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 Cooper Mountain Ranch Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	7.0%	11,120
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	36%	56,192
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	44%	69,576
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	13%	20,223
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.5%	716

7% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 11,120 acres; 43% 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

Kent County	TX	63,029
Scurry County	TX	48,509
Fisher County	TX	43,566
Stonewall County	TX	2,749

Other large fires in Texas in 2011

Rock House Fire299,011 acres
Deaton Cole Fire167,650 acres
Wildcat Fire150,117 acres
Swenson Fire136,718 acres
Pk Complex128,450 acres
Frying Pan Ranch Fire106,264 acres
Dickens County Complex90,789 acres
Iron Mountain Fire85,018 acres

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