Bitzshitini Fire

202277,518 acresAlaska

The Bitzshitini Fire burned 77,518 acres, about 121 square miles, across Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area. It began on June 20, 2022.

Watch how it happened

Bitzshitini 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

Detections2,736satellite 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 (2,248 VIIRS and 488 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 Bitzshitini Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	11%	8,486
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	37%	28,726
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	27%	21,033
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	21%	16,103
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.2%	143
Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images	3.9%	3,025

11% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 8,486 acres; 48% 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

Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	AK	77,580

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
Aghaluk Mountain Fire115,788 acres
Chitanana Fire105,682 acres
Kiknik Fire99,643 acres

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