Black Canyon Fire

201561,415 acresWashington

The Black Canyon Fire burned 61,415 acres, about 96 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on August 14, 2015.

Watch how it happened

Black Canyon 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

Detections3,560satellite 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 (2,869 VIIRS and 691 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 Black Canyon Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	9.6%	5,876
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	14%	8,338
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	46%	28,544
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	28%	17,234
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	2.3%	1,422

10% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 5,876 acres; 23% 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

Okanogan County	WA	36,385
Chelan County	WA	24,994

Other large fires in Washington in 2015

North Star Fire218,484 acres
Tunk Block Fire180,097 acres
Lime Belt Fire137,116 acres
Butte Creek Fire79,362 acres
Wolverine Fire66,339 acres
Carpenter Rd. Fire62,449 acres
Stickpin Fire54,091 acres
Cougar Creek Fire51,849 acres

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