Munson Creek Fire

202154,072 acresAlaska

The Munson Creek Fire burned 54,072 acres, about 84 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on June 19, 2021.

Watch how it happened

Munson Creek 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

Detections1,953satellite 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 (1,535 VIIRS and 418 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 Munson Creek Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	26%	13,969
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	44%	23,575
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	20%	10,816
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	11%	5,691

26% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 13,969 acres; 69% 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

Fairbanks North Star Borough	AK	53,475
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	AK	629

Other large fires in Alaska in 2021

Dry Creek Fire53,267 acres
Cultas Creek Fire42,173 acres
Black Hills Fire28,339 acres

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