Cow Canyon Fire

202033,535 acresArizona and New Mexico

The Cow Canyon Fire burned 33,535 acres, about 52 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on August 18, 2020.

Watch how it happened

Cow Canyon Fire · 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

Detections2,984satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

San Francisco, to scale47 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (2,578 VIIRS and 406 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 Cow Canyon Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	5.2%	1,760
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	20%	6,629
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	38%	12,901
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	36%	12,201
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	24
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	0.1%	20

5% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 1,760 acres; 25% 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

Greenlee County	AZ	27,373
Catron County	NM	6,161

Other large fires in Arizona and New Mexico in 2020

Bush Fire212,384 acres
Bighorn Fire126,035 acres
Mangum Fire71,583 acres
Griffin Fire61,410 acres
Basin Fire38,630 acres
Valley Fire29,305 acres
Blue River Fire29,289 acres
Blue River 2 Fire26,875 acres

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