Ponderosa Fire

201228,676 acresCalifornia

The Ponderosa Fire burned 28,676 acres, about 45 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on August 18, 2012.

Watch how it happened

Ponderosa Fire · 2012

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

Detections1,432satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Manhattan, to scale23 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (1,161 VIIRS and 271 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 Ponderosa Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	38%	11,001
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	28%	7,968
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	25%	7,120
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	9.0%	2,568
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	18

38% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 11,001 acres; 66% 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

Tehama County	CA	17,343
Shasta County	CA	11,346

Other large fires in California in 2012

Rush Fire307,085 acres
Barry Point Fire91,493 acres
Chips Fire79,959 acres
Bagley Fire47,705 acres
North Pass Fire43,653 acres
Mill Fire29,899 acres
Reading Fire26,861 acres

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