Ferguson Fire

201897,379 acresCalifornia

The Ferguson Fire burned 97,379 acres, about 152 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on July 13, 2018.

Watch how it happened

Ferguson Fire · 2018

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

Detections8,910satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Washington, D.C., to scale61 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (6,922 VIIRS and 1,988 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 Ferguson Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	8.8%	8,586
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	34%	33,080
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	43%	42,068
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	12%	11,495
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.3%	272
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	1.9%	1,878

9% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 8,586 acres; 43% 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

Mariposa County	CA	97,117
Tuolumne County	CA	189

Other large fires in California in 2018

Ranch Fire426,721 acres
Carr Fire233,526 acres
Camp Fire153,619 acres
Woolsey Fire97,955 acres
County Fire92,393 acres
Delta Fire63,688 acres
River Fire48,885 acres
Hirz Fire46,660 acres

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