Aghaluk Mountain Fire

2022115,788 acresAlaska

The Aghaluk Mountain Fire burned 115,788 acres, about 181 square miles, across Bethel Census Area. It began on June 6, 2022.

Watch how it happened

Aghaluk Mountain Fire · 2022

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

Detections2,480satellite 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 (1,820 VIIRS and 660 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 Aghaluk Mountain Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	39%	45,478
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	23%	26,628
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	21%	24,125
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	11%	12,796
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.1%	90
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	5.8%	6,672

39% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 45,478 acres; 62% 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

Bethel Census Area	AK	115,868

Other large fires in Alaska in 2022

Koktuli River Fire296,617 acres
Tatlawiksuk Fire262,238 acres
Hog Butte Fire206,009 acres
East Fork Fire169,400 acres
Door Mountain Fire167,023 acres
Chitanana Fire105,682 acres
Kiknik Fire99,643 acres
Swift River Fire92,389 acres

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