Pole Creek Fire

2018102,350 acresUtah

The Pole Creek Fire burned 102,350 acres, about 160 square miles, across 3 counties. It began on September 6, 2018.

Watch how it happened

Pole Creek 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

Detections4,420satellite 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 (3,432 VIIRS and 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 Pole Creek Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	14%	14,030
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	33%	33,915
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	32%	32,381
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	19%	19,258
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	2.7%	2,765

14% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 14,030 acres; 47% 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

Utah County	UT	101,613
Juab County	UT	715
Sanpete County	UT	96

Other large fires in Utah in 2018

Goose Creek Fire131,550 acres
Dollar Ridge Fire69,762 acres
Coal Hollow Fire30,219 acres

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