Cougar Creek Fire
201551,849 acresWashington
The Cougar Creek Fire burned 51,849 acres, about 81 square miles, across Yakima County. It began on August 10, 2015.
Watch how it happenedCougar Creek Fire · 2015
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered | 35% | 18,393 |
| Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive | 29% | 15,182 |
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 28% | 14,622 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 5.7% | 2,969 |
| Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before | 0.1% | 35 |
| Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images | 1.3% | 648 |
35% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 18,393 acres; 65% 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.
| Yakima County | WA | 51,867 |
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
- Black Canyon Fire61,415 acres
- Stickpin Fire54,091 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.