River Fire

202051,566 acresCalifornia

The River Fire burned 51,566 acres, about 81 square miles, across Monterey County. It began on August 16, 2020.

Watch how it happened

River 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

Detections1,809satellite 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 (1,517 VIIRS and 292 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	9.9%	5,111
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	27%	14,158
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	26%	13,523
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	35%	18,028
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	1.4%	747

10% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 5,111 acres; 37% 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

Monterey County	CA	51,578

Other large fires in California in 2020

August Complex1.07 million acres
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

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