Wildfires of 1998

West Mountain II Fire

1998UtahWildfire

The West Mountain II Fire burned 1,316 acres in Utah, in 1998. It was discovered on September 18, 1998, and contained on September 20, 1998. The cause was recorded as smoking.

Size
1,316 acres
Discovered
September 18, 1998
Contained
September 20, 1998
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 1,266 acres. Point of origin as reported, 40.042, -111.803.

The record

Reported final size
1,316 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
1,266 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
648 acres
Discovered
September 18, 1998, 6:15 p.m. local time
Contained
September 20, 1998, 8:00 p.m. local time
Cause
Human, Smoking
State
Utah
Land ownership at origin
Other Federal
Reporting unit
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest
Agency
Forest Service
Unit
UTUWF
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
UT4006211180519980918
MTBS assessment
Initial
Fire occurrence record
FS-334311
Perimeter map method
Digitized Other

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 Utah in 199812

FireAcresStartCause
Tekoi Fire20,700Jul 13, 1998Human
Unnamed Fire16,467Jul 18, 1998
Topliff Fire13,926Jul 20, 1998Natural
George Fire7,629Jul 18, 1998Natural
Faust Fire6,550Jul 3, 1998Human
Bulldog Fire6,375Jun 27, 1998Human
Minersville Fire4,052Jul 4, 1998Human
Muddy Canyon Fire3,976Aug 19, 1998Natural
Salt Lake Complex (White Rock) Fire3,083Jul 19, 1998Natural
Hovenweep Fire2,455Jul 19, 1998Natural
Barn Fire1,815Jul 13, 1998Human
Garn Fire1,750Aug 9, 1998Natural

Every fire of 1998 Utah 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.