Griffin Fire

202061,410 acresArizona

The Griffin Fire burned 61,410 acres, about 96 square miles, across Gila County. It began on August 18, 2020.

Watch how it happened

Griffin 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

Detections935satellite 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 (789 VIIRS and 146 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 Griffin Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	4.1%	2,545
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	16%	9,754
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	66%	40,254
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	13%	8,197
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	1.1%	659

4% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 2,545 acres; 20% 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

Gila County	AZ	61,454

Other large fires in Arizona in 2020

Bush Fire212,384 acres
Bighorn Fire126,035 acres
Mangum Fire71,583 acres
Basin Fire38,630 acres
Cow Canyon Fire33,535 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.