Welder Fire
201232,984 acresMontana
The Welder Fire burned 32,984 acres, about 52 square miles, across Blaine County. It began on September 14, 2012.
Watch how it happenedWelder 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 77% | 25,291 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 4.1% | 1,341 |
| Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images | 19% | 6,352 |
Most of the area inside the perimeter burned at low severity or not at all.
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.
| Blaine County | MT | 32,985 |
Other large fires in Montana in 2012
- Mustang Complex377,684 acres
- Ash Creek Fire253,270 acres
- Chalky Fire132,639 acres
- Sarpy Hills Complex83,940 acres
- Taylor Creek Fire64,337 acres
- Delphia Fire40,412 acres
- Elbow Pass Complex28,984 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.