Sulatna River Fire

201344,396 acresAlaska

The Sulatna River Fire burned 44,396 acres, about 69 square miles, across Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. It began on June 21, 2013.

Watch how it happened

Sulatna River Fire · 2013

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

Detections826satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Washington, D.C., to scale61 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (665 VIIRS and 161 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 Sulatna River Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	17%	7,708
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	28%	12,425
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	19%	8,530
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	14%	6,221
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.3%	120
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	21%	9,392

17% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 7,708 acres; 45% 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

Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	AK	44,423

Other large fires in Alaska in 2013

Lime Hills Fire193,970 acres
Moore Creek Fire135,698 acres
Stuart Creek #2 Fire87,915 acres
Beaver Log Lakes Fire62,194 acres
Prospect Creek Fire61,812 acres
Mississippi Fire59,146 acres
Sandless Lake Fire56,921 acres
Chisana River Fire44,365 acres

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