Erskine Fire

201648,047 acresCalifornia

The Erskine Fire burned 48,047 acres, about 75 square miles, across Kern County. It began on June 23, 2016.

Watch how it happened

Erskine 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

Detections1,497satellite 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 (1,196 VIIRS and 301 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 Erskine Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	21%	10,285
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	31%	14,692
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	20%	9,482
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	28%	13,537
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	50

21% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 10,285 acres; 52% 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

Kern County	CA	48,067

Other large fires in California in 2016

Soberanes Fire131,881 acres
Chimney Fire46,948 acres
Sand Fire41,543 acres
Blue Cut Fire36,824 acres
Gap Fire33,916 acres
Rey Fire33,352 acres
Cedar Fire29,181 acres

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