Wildfires of 1997

Pot Fire

1997New MexicoWildfire

The Pot Fire burned 2,400 acres in New Mexico, in 1997. It was discovered on July 7, 1997, and contained on July 8, 1997. The cause was recorded as natural.

Size
2,400 acres
Discovered
July 7, 1997
Contained
July 8, 1997
Cause
Natural

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 2,256 acres. Point of origin as reported, 31.933, -107.187.

The record

Reported final size
2,400 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
2,256 acres
Discovered
July 7, 1997, 12:29 p.m. local time
Contained
July 8, 1997, 3:00 p.m. local time
Cause
Natural
State
New Mexico
Land ownership at origin
Bureau of Land Management
Reporting unit
Las Cruces Field Office
Agency
Bureau of Land Management
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
NM3200710714919970707
MTBS assessment
Initial
Fire occurrence record
W-12033

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 199712

FireAcresStartCause
Perez Fire38,000Mar 16, 1997
Lilly Fire25,000Apr 27, 1997Natural
Horton Fire25,000Mar 3, 1997
Caprock Fire10,240Jan 3, 1997
Unnamed Fire9,427Mar 7, 1997
Garita Fire8,000Mar 13, 1997
Rabbit Fire7,600
Langstroth Fire5,800
CR-50 Fire5,760Jun 2, 1997
Rinker Fire5,200Mar 24, 1997
Rocky Fire4,000Apr 21, 1997Natural
Ubar Fire3,220Jan 30, 1997

Every fire of 1997 New Mexico 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.