Wildfires of 1996

Fifty-Eight Fire

1996CaliforniaWildfire

The Fifty-Eight Fire burned 106,668 acres in California, in 1996. It was discovered on August 15, 1996, and contained on August 25, 1996. The cause was recorded as equipment and vehicle use.

Size
106,668 acres
Discovered
August 15, 1996
Contained
August 25, 1996
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 94,832 acres. Point of origin as reported, 35.420, -120.423.

The record

Reported final size
106,668 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
94,832 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
106,970 acres
Discovered
August 15, 1996, 2:17 p.m. local time
Contained
August 25, 1996, 8:00 a.m. local time
Cause
Human, Equipment and vehicle use
State
California
Reporting unit
Los Padres National Forest
Agency
Forest Service
Unit
CALPF
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
CA3534412027619960815
MTBS assessment
Extended
Fire occurrence record
FS-321463

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 California in 199612

FireAcresStartCause
Fork Fire83,323Aug 11, 1996Human
Wild Fire25,620Oct 7, 1996Human
Ambrose Complex (Damon-Long) Fire23,398Aug 26, 1996Natural
Rogge Fire22,080Aug 13, 1996Natural
Marple Fire22,000Aug 26, 1996Human
Skyline Fire19,839Apr 27, 1996Human
Unnamed Fire19,244May 28, 1996
Panoche II Fire18,340Apr 27, 1996Human
Mercy Fire16,820Jun 18, 1996Human
Otay 322 Fire14,720Oct 22, 1996Human
Calabasas Fire13,190Oct 21, 1996Human
Wolfskill Fire12,395Aug 12, 1996Human

Every fire of 1996 California 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. Fire reports from Short, Karen C. 2022, Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014], 6th Edition, Forest Service Research Data Archive, doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6. 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.