Pains Bay Fire
201140,198 acresNorth Carolina
The Pains Bay Fire burned 40,198 acres, about 63 square miles, across Dare County. It began on May 5, 2011.
Watch how it happenedPains Bay Fire · 2011
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 | 7.4% | 2,980 |
| Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive | 17% | 6,704 |
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 20% | 8,128 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 6.4% | 2,569 |
| Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before | 14% | 5,621 |
| Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images | 35% | 14,197 |
7% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 2,980 acres; 24% 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.
| Dare County | NC | 40,217 |
Other large fires in North Carolina in 2011
- Juniper Road Fire31,557 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.