Wildfires of 1997

Beach Fire

1997CaliforniaWildfire

The Beach Fire burned 2,400 acres in California, in 1997. It was discovered on May 9, 1997. The cause was recorded as human.

Size
2,400 acres
Discovered
May 9, 1997
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 1,684 acres. Point of origin as reported, 33.896, -117.164.

The record

Reported final size
2,400 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
1,684 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
2,295 acres
Discovered
May 9, 1997
Cause
Human, Undetermined
State
California
Reporting unit
Riverside Unit
Agency
CAL FIRE
Unit
CARRU
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
CA3389911715119970509
MTBS assessment
Initial (SS)
Fire occurrence record
CDF_1997_55_2225_621

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 199712

FireAcresStartCause
Logan Fire49,490Aug 4, 1997Human
Fernandez Fire43,700Oct 24, 1997Human
Hopper Fire24,800Aug 5, 1997Human
Narrows Fire18,186Aug 13, 1997Human
Chocktaw Fire10,416Aug 19, 1997Human
Midway Complex7,485Jun 20, 1997Human
Pauba Fire7,231Aug 31, 1997Human
Baker Fire6,317Oct 13, 1997Human
Williams Fire5,745Sep 27, 1997Human
Jacks Fire5,693Aug 9, 1997Natural
Canyon 2 Fire5,200Jul 1, 1997Human
Lokern Two Fire4,566

Every fire of 1997 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.