Wildfires of 1987

Sierra Fire

1987ColoradoWildfire

The Sierra Fire burned 3,465 acres in Colorado, in 1987. MTBS dates its ignition to July 20, 1987.

Size
3,465 acres
Ignition
July 20, 1987

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 3,465 acres. MTBS's point for the fire, 40.516, -108.147.

The record

Burned area mapped by MTBS
3,465 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
3,356 acres
Ignition (MTBS)
July 20, 1987
State
Colorado
Agency
Bureau of Land Management
Unit
COLSD
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
CO4051610814719870720
MTBS assessment
Initial

The three sizes are three measurements: the size the agency reported when the fire was out, the burned area MTBS drew from satellite imagery before and after, and the GIS area inside the final perimeter, unburned islands included. They rarely agree exactly.

Other large fires in Colorado in 19876

FireAcresStartCause
Battlement Fire3,847Jul 7, 1987
Gadfly Fire3,088Jul 23, 1987
Aztecthree Fire2,856Jul 5, 1987
Dinosaur Fire2,794
Tank Fire2,414Aug 20, 1987
Unnamed Fire1,847Aug 5, 1987

Every fire of 1987 Colorado fire history

Nearby

Sources

Perimeters from the National Interagency Fire Center’s Interagency Fire Perimeter History, compiled from the Forest Service, BLM, BIA, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, the Alaska Interagency Fire Center and CAL FIRE. Burned areas and ignition dates from Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS), a program of the US Geological Survey and the USDA Forest Service. Records before 2014 were joined by this site: a fire report to the burned area its MTBS identifier names, a perimeter to the burned area it lies in when the names or the sizes agree.