Saddle Draw Fire

2014283,891 acresOregon

The Saddle Draw Fire burned 283,891 acres, about 444 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on July 14, 2014.

Watch how it happened

Saddle Draw Fire · 2014

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

Detections2,773satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

New York City, to scale301 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (2,039 VIIRS and 734 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 Saddle Draw Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	12%	33,124
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	73%	207,433
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	15%	41,733
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	330
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	0.4%	1,271

No part of the fire was classed as high severity; 12% burned at moderate 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

Malheur County	OR	233,650
Harney County	OR	50,415

Other large fires in Oregon in 2014

Buzzard Fire88,633 acres
South Fork Complex66,753 acres
Big Cougar Fire65,339 acres
Black Rock Fire40,766 acres
Shaniko Butte Fire39,843 acres
Somers Fire36,346 acres
Beaver Complex35,178 acres
Pine Creek Fire31,057 acres

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