Monument Fire

2021225,973 acresCalifornia

The Monument Fire burned 225,973 acres, about 353 square miles, across Trinity County. It began on July 31, 2021.

Watch how it happened

Monument Fire · 2021

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

Detections23,528satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

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

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

New York City, to scale301 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (19,048 VIIRS and 4,480 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 Monument Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	21%	47,827
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	25%	56,824
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	34%	76,521
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	20%	44,567
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	233

21% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 47,827 acres; 46% 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	226,149

Other large fires in California in 2021

Dixie Fire979,722 acres
Caldor Fire226,739 acres
Haypress Fire204,379 acres
Antelope Fire141,890 acres
Mcfarland Fire121,476 acres
Sugar Fire108,479 acres
Windy Fire97,802 acres
Mccash Fire95,698 acres

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