Wildfires of 1998

Kootenai Complex (Mcdonald) Fire

1998MontanaWildland fire use

The Kootenai Complex (Mcdonald) Fire burned 8,758 acres in Montana, in 1998. It was discovered on August 30, 1998. The cause was recorded as natural.

Size
8,758 acres
Discovered
August 30, 1998
Cause
Natural

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 8,063 acres. Point of origin as reported, 48.811, -113.906.

The record

Reported final size
8,758 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
8,063 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
8,756 acres
Discovered
August 30, 1998, 4:50 p.m. local time
Cause
Natural
State
Montana
Land ownership at origin
National Park Service
Reporting unit
Glacier National Park
Agency
National Park Service
Unit
MTGNP
Part of
Kootenai Complex
Incident type
Wildland fire use
Unique fire identifier
1998-MTGNP-000028
MTBS fire identifier
MT4882411388319980830
MTBS assessment
Extended
Fire occurrence record
W-263383
Perimeter map method
Heads-up Digitized
Note on the perimeter
From WFMI

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 Montana in 199812

FireAcresStartCause
Bradshaw Fire20,921Aug 31, 1998Natural
Challenge Fire8,800Sep 2, 1998Natural
Boyer Creek Fire7,038Sep 2, 1998Human
Burnt Shed Fire6,356Sep 8, 1998Natural
Sandburn Fire5,680May 17, 1998Natural
Herman Rid Fire4,926Sep 1, 1998Natural
Bitterroot Complex (North Rye) Fire3,950Sep 2, 1998Human
Dome Fire3,340Sep 2, 1998Natural
Bowl Mtn Fire3,070Aug 9, 1998Natural
Pocket Creek Fire2,395May 27, 1998Natural
Garfield Fire2,050Jul 14, 1998Natural
Cherry Spg Fire2,000Aug 31, 1998Natural

Every fire of 1998 Montana fire history

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.