Pier Fire

201736,616 acresCalifornia

The Pier Fire burned 36,616 acres, about 57 square miles, across Tulare County. It began on August 29, 2017.

Watch how it happened

Pier 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

Detections2,186satellite 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 (1,783 VIIRS and 403 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 Pier Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	11%	3,914
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	23%	8,436
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	32%	11,816
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	34%	12,436

11% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 3,914 acres; 34% 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

Tulare County	CA	36,625

Other large fires in California in 2017

Thomas Fire282,076 acres
Oak Fire95,627 acres
Detwiler Fire83,375 acres
Long Valley Fire80,503 acres
Island Fire62,884 acres
Nuns Fire56,839 acres
Atlas Fire51,629 acres
Steele Fire49,157 acres

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