Perryton Fire

2017290,085 acresOklahoma and Texas

The Perryton Fire burned 290,085 acres, about 453 square miles, across 6 counties. It began on March 6, 2017.

Watch how it happened

Perryton 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

Detections1,309satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

New York City, to scale301 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (1,180 VIIRS and 129 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 Perryton Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	80%	231,690
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	19%	54,217
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	289
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	1.3%	3,888

Most of the area inside the perimeter burned at low severity or not at all.

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

Hemphill County	TX	111,777
Lipscomb County	TX	111,277
Ochiltree County	TX	31,350
Roberts County	TX	29,976
Ellis County	OK	4,820
Roger Mills County	OK	1,008

Other large fires in Oklahoma and Texas in 2017

Oks - Starbuck Fire656,868 acres
Lefors East Fire68,690 acres
Oks - 283 Fire68,511 acres
Oks - Selman Fire44,738 acres
Rankin Ranch Road Fire37,703 acres
Dumas Complex26,170 acres

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