Liberty Fire
201727,752 acresMontana
The Liberty Fire burned 27,752 acres, about 43 square miles, across Missoula County. It began on July 15, 2017.
Watch how it happenedLiberty Fire · 2017
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 | 27% | 7,630 |
| Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive | 39% | 10,846 |
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 26% | 7,226 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 7.1% | 1,972 |
| Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before | 0.3% | 76 |
27% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 7,630 acres; 67% 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.
| Missoula County | MT | 27,731 |
Other large fires in Montana in 2017
- Bridge Coulee Fire222,645 acres
- Rice Ridge Fire171,675 acres
- Sartin Draw Fire91,520 acres
- Deer Creek Fire90,111 acres
- Meyers Fire68,734 acres
- Lolo Peak Fire62,337 acres
- South Breaks Fire39,230 acres
- Little Hogback Fire34,653 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.