Mosquito Fire

202336,088 acresCalifornia

The Mosquito Fire burned 36,088 acres, about 56 square miles, across 3 counties. It began on August 15, 2023.

Watch how it happened

Mosquito Fire · 2023

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

Detections3,865satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

Burn severityHigh, Moderate, Low, Unburned to low, Increased greenness

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Boston, to scale48 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (3,200 VIIRS and 665 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 Mosquito Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	12%	4,182
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	25%	8,877
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	47%	16,912
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	17%	6,114

12% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 4,182 acres; 36% 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

Del Norte County	CA	21,675
Siskiyou County	CA	11,630
Humboldt County	CA	2,810

Other large fires in California in 2023

York Fire94,728 acres
Kelly Fire90,208 acres

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