Bearskin Fire

201729,625 acresIdaho

The Bearskin Fire burned 29,625 acres, about 46 square miles, across Valley County. It began on August 24, 2017.

Watch how it happened

Bearskin Fire · 2017

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

Detections3,522satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Manhattan, to scale23 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (2,938 VIIRS and 584 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 Bearskin Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	14%	4,277
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	42%	12,423
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	37%	10,907
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	6.8%	2,015

14% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 4,277 acres; 56% 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

Valley County	ID	29,637

Other large fires in Idaho in 2017

Highline Fire93,679 acres
Lolo Peak Fire62,337 acres
Powerline Fire54,349 acres
Mammoth Cave Fire50,410 acres
Powerline Fire45,405 acres
Loveridge Fire39,611 acres
Shoestring Fire35,544 acres
Antelope Fire29,651 acres

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