Wildfires of 1998

Cheaha Wilderness Fire

1998AlabamaWildfire

The Cheaha Wilderness Fire burned 3,108 acres in Alabama, in 1998. It was discovered on December 4, 1998, and contained on December 13, 1998. The cause was recorded as arson/incendiarism.

Size
3,108 acres
Discovered
December 4, 1998
Contained
December 13, 1998
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 3,298 acres. Point of origin as reported, 33.402, -85.853.

The record

Reported final size
3,108 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
3,298 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
3,115 acres
Discovered
December 4, 1998, 3:30 p.m. local time
Contained
December 13, 1998, 4:00 p.m. local time
Cause
Human, Arson/incendiarism
State
Alabama
Land ownership at origin
Forest Service
Reporting unit
National Forests in Alabama
Agency
Forest Service
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
AL3341708585019981204
MTBS assessment
Initial (SS)
Fire occurrence record
FS-339559
Perimeter map method
Digitized From Hardcopy PBS/SEQ
Note on the perimeter
arson sets in wilderness area

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.

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.