Birch Creek 2 Fire

201532,739 acresAlaska

The Birch Creek 2 Fire burned 32,739 acres, about 51 square miles, across Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. It began on June 15, 2015.

Watch how it happened

Birch Creek 2 Fire · 2015

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

Detections696satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

San Francisco, to scale47 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (524 VIIRS and 172 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 Birch Creek 2 Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	8.0%	2,606
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	28%	9,174
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	53%	17,341
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	11%	3,564
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.2%	49

8% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 2,606 acres; 36% 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	32,759

Other large fires in Alaska in 2015

Middle Yukon Fires407,220 acres
Tobatokh Fire220,037 acres
Isahultila Fire192,663 acres
Holtnakatna Fire180,199 acres
Tanana Area Fires176,773 acres
Rock Fire142,933 acres
Big Mud River 1 Fire140,914 acres
Munsatli 2 Fire124,572 acres

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