Anderson Creek Fire

2016374,226 acresKansas and Oklahoma

The Anderson Creek Fire burned 374,226 acres, about 585 square miles, across 3 counties. It began on March 23, 2016.

Watch how it happened

Anderson Creek Fire · 2016

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

Detections3,534satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Los Angeles, to scale470 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (2,740 VIIRS and 794 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 Anderson Creek Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	4.9%	18,469
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	81%	301,951
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	2.8%	10,623
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	2.5%	9,410
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	9.0%	33,773

No part of the fire was classed as high severity; 5% 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

Barber County	KS	244,245
Woods County	OK	89,434
Comanche County	KS	40,843

Other large fires in Kansas and Oklahoma in 2016

Rd 80 Fire63,093 acres
350 Complex58,003 acres

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