Tule Fire

201635,365 acresNevada

The Tule Fire burned 35,365 acres, about 55 square miles, across Washoe County. It began on July 28, 2016.

Watch how it happened

Tule 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

Detections813satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Boston, to scale48 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (591 VIIRS and 222 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 Tule Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	41%	14,580
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	50%	17,656
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	8.8%	3,129

No part of the fire was classed as high severity; 41% 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

Washoe County	NV	35,342

Other large fires in Nevada in 2016

Hot Pot Fire119,902 acres

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