August Complex

20201.07 million acresCalifornia

The August Complex burned 1.07 million acres, about 1,669 square miles, across 6 counties. It began on August 17, 2020.

Watch how it happened

August Complex · 2020

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

Detections77,815satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Rhode Island, to scale1,034 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (64,253 VIIRS and 13,562 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 August Complex

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	27%	293,438
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	27%	288,810
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	29%	309,359
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	16%	175,350
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	920

27% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 293,438 acres; 55% 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

Trinity County	CA	394,765
Tehama County	CA	241,785
Mendocino County	CA	199,094
Glenn County	CA	187,125
Lake County	CA	44,678
Shasta County	CA	1,341

Other large fires in California in 2020

Scu Lightning Complex405,644 acres
Creek Fire381,529 acres
North Complex316,524 acres
Hennessey Fire314,015 acres
Castle Fire174,347 acres
Slater Fire157,657 acres
Red Salmon Complex147,429 acres
Dolan Fire124,343 acres

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