Wildfires of 1997

Rinker Fire

1997New MexicoWildfire

The Rinker Fire burned 5,200 acres in New Mexico, in 1997. It was discovered on March 24, 1997.

Size
5,200 acres
Discovered
March 24, 1997
Cause
Undetermined

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 2,143 acres. Point of origin as reported, 36.488, -103.046.

The record

Reported final size
5,200 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
2,143 acres
Discovered
March 24, 1997
Cause
Undetermined
State
New Mexico
Land ownership at origin
Private
Reporting unit
New Mexico State Forestry Division
Agency
State or local agency
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
NM3643510304819970324
MTBS assessment
Initial (SS)
Fire occurrence record
NM97-20180456X
Note on the perimeter
Mapped in 32/35 due to limited imagery

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
Rocky Fire4,000Apr 21, 1997Natural
Ubar Fire3,220Jan 30, 1997
Batespastu Fire3,199Mar 18, 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.