Wildfires of 1997

Olympia Command Fire

1997WashingtonWildfire

The Olympia Command Fire burned 5,500 acres in Washington, in 1997. It was discovered on August 26, 1997, and contained on August 28, 1997. The cause was recorded as debris and open burning.

Size
5,500 acres
Discovered
August 26, 1997
Contained
August 28, 1997
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 3,678 acres. Point of origin as reported, 46.117, -119.085.

The record

Reported final size
5,500 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
3,678 acres
Discovered
August 26, 1997, 4:35 p.m. local time
Contained
August 28, 1997, 6:00 a.m. local time
Cause
Human, Debris and open burning
State
Washington
Land ownership at origin
Private
Reporting unit
Spokane District
Agency
Bureau of Land Management
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
WA4614011912319970826
MTBS assessment
Initial
Fire occurrence record
W-12828

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 Washington in 19977

FireAcresStartCause
Haystack Fire20,187
Pow Wah Kee Fire6,500Aug 2, 1997Natural
Corefu Fire5,000Jul 21, 1997Natural
Star Fire1,800Aug 11, 1997Human
Fireweed Fire1,605
Unnamed Fire1,151Aug 14, 1997Human
Corral Cyn Fire920May 17, 1997Human

Every fire of 1997 Washington 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.