Sugar Fire

2021108,479 acresCalifornia

The Sugar Fire burned 108,479 acres, about 169 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on July 2, 2021.

Watch how it happened

Sugar 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

Detections5,982satellite 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 (4,784 VIIRS and 1,198 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 Sugar Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	20%	22,022
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	24%	25,653
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	50%	54,555
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	4.4%	4,741
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	1.4%	1,507

20% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 22,022 acres; 44% 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

Plumas County	CA	70,791
Lassen County	CA	37,576

Other large fires in California in 2021

Dixie Fire979,722 acres
Caldor Fire226,739 acres
Monument Fire225,973 acres
Haypress Fire204,379 acres
Antelope Fire141,890 acres
Mcfarland Fire121,476 acres
Windy Fire97,802 acres
Mccash Fire95,698 acres

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