Wildfires of 1988

Unit 21 Fire

1988New MexicoWildfire

The Unit 21 Fire burned 2,715 acres in New Mexico, in 1988. MTBS dates its ignition to December 19, 1988.

Size
2,715 acres
Ignition
December 19, 1988

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 2,715 acres. MTBS's point for the fire, 36.335, -103.132.

The record

Burned area mapped by MTBS
2,715 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
2,092 acres
Ignition (MTBS)
December 19, 1988
State
New Mexico
Agency
Forest Service
Unit
NMCIF
Incident type
Wildfire
Unique fire identifier
1988-NMCIF-000053
MTBS fire identifier
NM3631710320019881219
MTBS assessment
Initial
Perimeter map method
Digitized From Hardcopy Orthophoto quad
Note on the perimeter
estimated perimeter

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 New Mexico in 198812

FireAcresStartCause
Fort Fire20,316Dec 23, 1988
Tatum Fire15,150Nov 26, 1988
Unnamed Fire8,447Apr 7, 1988
Rosa Fire7,385Feb 22, 1988
Magnum Fire6,487Mar 10, 1988
Kemnitz Fire5,930Nov 8, 1988
Miami Fire3,152Mar 25, 1988
Saw Fire3,110May 6, 1988
Lechugwest Fire2,729Jun 13, 1988
Custer Fire2,406Nov 15, 1988
Milagro Fire1,954Feb 21, 1988
Prude Fire1,921

Every fire of 1988 New Mexico 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.