Chips Fire
201279,959 acresCalifornia
The Chips Fire burned 79,959 acres, about 125 square miles, across Plumas County. It began on July 29, 2012.
Watch how it happenedChips Fire · 2012
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 | 20% | 15,839 |
| Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive | 30% | 23,908 |
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 38% | 30,705 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 12% | 9,275 |
| Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before | 0.1% | 69 |
| Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images | 0.2% | 163 |
20% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 15,839 acres; 50% 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.
| Plumas County | CA | 79,978 |
Other large fires in California in 2012
- Rush Fire307,085 acres
- Barry Point Fire91,493 acres
- Bagley Fire47,705 acres
- North Pass Fire43,653 acres
- Mill Fire29,899 acres
- Ponderosa Fire28,676 acres
- Reading Fire26,861 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.