Soberanes Fire

2016131,881 acresCalifornia

The Soberanes Fire burned 131,881 acres, about 206 square miles, across Monterey County. It began on July 22, 2016.

Watch how it happened

Soberanes 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

Detections9,845satellite 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 (7,845 VIIRS and 2,000 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 Soberanes Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	4.5%	5,968
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	23%	29,919
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	51%	66,950
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	21%	28,014
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.8%	1,027

5% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 5,968 acres; 27% 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

Monterey County	CA	131,931

Other large fires in California in 2016

Erskine Fire48,047 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.