Hirz Fire

201846,660 acresCalifornia

The Hirz Fire burned 46,660 acres, about 73 square miles, across Shasta County. It began on August 9, 2018.

Watch how it happened

Hirz 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

Detections3,553satellite 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 (2,841 VIIRS and 712 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 Hirz Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	9.3%	4,358
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	26%	12,070
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	55%	25,699
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	9.7%	4,532

9% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 4,358 acres; 35% 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

Shasta County	CA	46,699

Other large fires in California in 2018

Ranch Fire426,721 acres
Carr Fire233,526 acres
Camp Fire153,619 acres
Woolsey Fire97,955 acres
Ferguson Fire97,379 acres
County Fire92,393 acres
Delta Fire63,688 acres
River Fire48,885 acres

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