Rock Mountain Fire
201625,266 acresGeorgia and North Carolina
The Rock Mountain Fire burned 25,266 acres, about 39 square miles, across 4 counties. It began on November 9, 2016.
Watch how it happenedRock Mountain Fire · 2016
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 | 0.1% | 32 |
| Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive | 1.4% | 350 |
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 60% | 15,153 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 38% | 9,726 |
under 1% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 32 acres; 2% 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.
| Rabun County | GA | 11,129 |
| Macon County | NC | 8,480 |
| Clay County | NC | 3,824 |
| Towns County | GA | 1,791 |
Other large fires in Georgia and North Carolina in 2016
- Rough Ridge Fire27,621 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.