Wallow Fire

2011563,564 acresArizona and New Mexico

The Wallow Fire burned 563,564 acres, about 881 square miles, across 4 counties. It began on May 29, 2011.

Watch how it happened

Wallow 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

Detections4,437satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

Burn severityHigh, Moderate, Low, Unburned to low, Increased greenness

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Houston, to scale640 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (4,437 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 Wallow Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	9.2%	52,089
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	15%	87,166
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	35%	195,334
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	30%	166,842
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	2.6%	14,673
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	8.4%	47,460

9% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 52,089 acres; 25% 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

Apache County	AZ	328,065
Greenlee County	AZ	209,210
Catron County	NM	17,073
Graham County	AZ	9,314

Other large fires in Arizona and New Mexico in 2011

Horseshoe 2 Fire226,042 acres
Las Conchas Fire150,816 acres
Frying Pan Ranch Fire106,264 acres
Donaldson Fire103,242 acres
Miller Fire84,897 acres
Enterprise Fire77,348 acres
Murphy Complex64,356 acres
Last Chance Fire53,445 acres

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