Betty'S Way Fire

202468,392 acresNebraska

The Betty'S Way Fire burned 68,392 acres, about 107 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on February 26, 2024.

Watch how it happened

Betty'S Way Fire · 2024

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

Detections261satellite 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 (216 VIIRS and 45 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 Betty'S Way Fire

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	89%	60,683
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	11%	7,708

Most of the area inside the perimeter burned at low severity or not at all.

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

Lincoln County	NE	64,106
Custer County	NE	4,319

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