Owhat River Fire

201540,893 acresAlaska

The Owhat River Fire burned 40,893 acres, about 64 square miles, across Bethel Census Area. It began on June 24, 2015.

Watch how it happened

Owhat River 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
Detections519satellite fire pixels

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 Owhat River Fire
Burn severity by class
SeverityShareAcres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered4.6%1,893
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive19%7,723
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive59%24,236
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change9.7%3,979
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before0.4%164
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images7.1%2,898

5% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 1,893 acres; 24% 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
Bethel Census AreaAK40,921

Other large fires in Alaska in 2015

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