Wildfires of 1999

Ranch Fire

1999CaliforniaWildfire

The Ranch Fire burned 4,371 acres in California, in 1999. It was discovered on December 21, 1999, and contained on December 27, 1999. The cause was recorded as fireworks.

Size
4,371 acres
Discovered
December 21, 1999
Contained
December 27, 1999
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 4,008 acres. Point of origin as reported, 34.451, -119.130.

The record

Reported final size
4,371 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
4,008 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
4,021 acres
Discovered
December 21, 1999, 7:45 p.m. local time
Contained
December 27, 1999, 6:00 p.m. local time
Cause
Human, Fireworks
State
California
Reporting unit
Los Padres National Forest
Agency
Forest Service
Unit
CALPF
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
CA3445711915319991221
MTBS assessment
Extended
Fire occurrence record
FS-347716

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 California in 199912

FireAcresStartCause
Megram- Orleans Fire124,898Aug 23, 1999Natural
Willow Fire65,000Aug 28, 1999Human
Gun 2 Fire60,390Sep 28, 1999Human
Kirk Complex (Hare) Fire49,551Sep 13, 1999Natural
Sixteen Fire40,000Oct 16, 1999Human
Mhrd Complex (Bucks) Fire34,175Aug 23, 1999Natural
Pine Fire30,568Aug 22, 1999Natural
Jones Fire26,202Oct 16, 1999Human
Kirk Complex (Five) Fire23,761Sep 8, 1999Natural
Tehama-Glenn Complex (Dehaven Gulch) Fire17,000Aug 23, 1999Human
Big Bar Complex (Onion) Fire16,732Aug 23, 1999
Spanish Fire14,537Jul 18, 1999Human

Every fire of 1999 California 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.