Wildfires of 1997

Buoy Line Fire

1997OklahomaWildfire

The Buoy Line Fire burned 11,000 acres in Oklahoma, in 1997. It was discovered on March 6, 1997, and contained on March 8, 1997. The cause was recorded as debris and open burning.

Size
11,000 acres
Discovered
March 6, 1997
Contained
March 8, 1997
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 6,117 acres. Point of origin as reported, 36.658, -101.185.

The record

Reported final size
11,000 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
6,117 acres
Discovered
March 6, 1997, 1:16 p.m. local time
Contained
March 8, 1997, 3:00 p.m. local time
Cause
Human, Debris and open burning
State
Oklahoma
Land ownership at origin
Private
Reporting unit
Optima National Wildlife Refuge
Agency
Fish and Wildlife Service
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
OK3668310116819970306
MTBS assessment
Initial (SS)
Fire occurrence record
FWS-1997OKOPR2670
Note on the perimeter
Acres much smaller than first reported.

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 Oklahoma in 19973

FireAcresStartCause
Comanche RX Fire4,743Mar 26, 1997
Unnamed Fire1,920Apr 3, 1997Human
Elk Mountain RX Fire1,400Mar 19, 1997

Every fire of 1997 Oklahoma fire history

Nearby

Sources

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.