Schneider Springs Fire

2021114,703 acresWashington

The Schneider Springs Fire burned 114,703 acres, about 179 square miles, across Yakima County. It began on August 4, 2021.

Watch how it happened

Schneider Springs 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

Detections10,893satellite 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 (9,153 VIIRS and 1,740 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 Schneider Springs Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	26%	30,335
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	19%	21,295
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	28%	31,966
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	27%	30,850
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.2%	256

26% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 30,335 acres; 45% 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

Yakima County	WA	114,736

Other large fires in Washington in 2021

Lick Creek Fire80,319 acres
Cub Creek 2 Fire74,637 acres
Whitmore Fire59,931 acres
Cedar Creek Fire58,650 acres
Summit Trail Fire54,824 acres
Green Ridge Fire44,577 acres
Chuweah Creek Fire37,386 acres
Walker Creek Fire26,159 acres

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