River Fire

201848,885 acresCalifornia

The River Fire burned 48,885 acres, about 76 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on July 27, 2018.

Watch how it happened

River 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

Detections1,292satellite 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 (968 VIIRS and 324 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 River Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	17%	8,351
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	36%	17,419
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	34%	16,793
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	13%	6,270
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	51

17% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 8,351 acres; 53% 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

Lake County	CA	38,519
Mendocino County	CA	10,401

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
Hirz Fire46,660 acres

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