Salt Lake Desert Complex (Aragonite) Fire
The Salt Lake Desert Complex (Aragonite) Fire burned 39,937 acres in Tooele County, Utah, in 2000. It was discovered on August 1, 2000, and contained on August 15, 2000. The cause was recorded as natural. Incident teams reported 2 structures destroyed.
- Size
- 39,937 acres
- Discovered
- August 1, 2000
- Contained
- August 15, 2000
- Cause
- Natural
- Structures destroyed
- 2
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 39,815 acres. Point of origin as reported, 40.709, -112.992.
The record
- Reported final size
- 39,937 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 39,815 acres
- Discovered
- August 1, 2000, 9:25 p.m. local time
- Contained
- August 15, 2000, 7:10 p.m. local time
- Cause
- Natural
- State
- Utah
- County
- Tooele County
- Land ownership at origin
- Bureau of Land Management
- Reporting unit
- Salt Lake Field Office
- Agency
- Bureau of Land Management
- Part of
- Salt Lake Desert Complex
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- MTBS fire identifier
- UT4067711294220000801
- MTBS assessment
- Initial
- Fire occurrence record
- W-97863
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.
From the incident teams’ reports
The status summaries (ICS-209 forms) the incident teams filed: 19, from July 28, 2000 to August 12, 2000. These are the teams’ own estimates, written while the incident was running, and personnel is totaled from the resources each report lists. A fact the reports leave blank is not shown, and a zero on the form is treated as blank.
- Structures destroyed
- 2
- Most structures threatened at once
- 6
- Most personnel assigned
- 146 on August 3, 2000
- Most aircraft assigned
- 2
- Cost reported by the teams
- $620,000, in 2000 dollars
- Cause on the reports
- Lightning or other natural
Acres reported by day
The largest rise between two days’ reports was 38,972 acres, on August 3, 2000.
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 28, 2000 | 750 | |
| Jul 29, 2000 | 750 | 0 |
| Jul 30, 2000 | 850 | +100 |
| Jul 31, 2000 | 850 | 0 |
| Aug 1, 2000 | 200 | -650 |
| Aug 2, 2000 | 5,000 | +4,800 |
| Aug 3, 2000 | 43,972 | +38,972 |
| Aug 4, 2000 | 43,972 | 0 |
| Aug 5, 2000 | 44,000 | +28 |
| Aug 6, 2000 | 44,000 | 0 |
| Aug 7, 2000 | 44,000 | 0 |
| Aug 8, 2000 | 44,000 | 0 |
| Aug 9, 2000 | 44,000 | 0 |
| Aug 10, 2000 | 44,000 | 0 |
| Aug 11, 2000 | 44,000 | 0 |
| Aug 12, 2000 | 44,000 | 0 |
Other large fires in Utah in 200012
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oldroyd Complex (Mona West) Fire | 33,838 | Jul 27, 2000 | Natural |
| Castlerock Fire | 16,116 | Jul 26, 2000 | Natural |
| Oldroyd Complex (Broad) Fire | 14,956 | Jul 26, 2000 | Natural |
| Hogup Fire | 14,355 | Jul 12, 2000 | Natural |
| Adelaide Complex (Morning Dove) Fire | 11,540 | Jul 26, 2000 | Natural |
| Swains Fire | 7,898 | Aug 12, 2000 | Human |
| South Rose Ranch Fire | 5,943 | Jul 17, 2000 | Natural |
| 10 Mile Pass Fire | 5,867 | Aug 6, 2000 | Human |
| Brown Springs Fire | 4,334 | Jun 10, 2000 | Human |
| Chournos Fire | 3,920 | Aug 5, 2000 | Natural |
| Molly Fire | 3,910 | Jul 16, 2000 | Natural |
| Borrow Pit Fire | 3,905 | Jul 5, 2000 | Human |
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. Incident figures from ICS-209-PLUS: St. Denis, Lise A., Karen C. Short, Kathryn McConnell, Maxwell C. Cook, Nathan P. Mietkiewicz, Mollie Buckland and Jennifer K. Balch, 2023, All-hazards dataset mined from the US National Incident Management System 1999-2020, Scientific Data 10, 112, doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-01955-0; data on figshare, doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19858927.v3, licensed CC BY 4.0. This site matched each incident to the fire by the dataset’s own links where it has them, and otherwise by name, start date, state and size, and left out figures too large to be possible for a fire of its size.