Wildfires of 2002

Sheep Creek Fire

2002MontanaWildfire

The Sheep Creek Fire burned 2,016 acres in Montana, in 2002. It was discovered on August 15, 2002, and contained on August 26, 2002. The cause was recorded as natural.

Size
2,016 acres
Discovered
August 15, 2002
Contained
August 26, 2002
Cause
Natural

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 1,954 acres. Point of origin as reported, 45.683, -113.767.

The record

Reported final size
2,016 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
1,954 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
1,999 acres
Discovered
August 15, 2002, 3:00 p.m. local time
Contained
August 26, 2002, 6:00 p.m. local time
Cause
Natural
State
Montana
Land ownership at origin
Forest Service
Reporting unit
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest
Agency
Forest Service
Unit
MTNRC
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
MT4567611375020020815
MTBS assessment
Extended
Fire occurrence record
FS-380947
Perimeter records
2 on file for this fire; the largest is shown
Note on the perimeter
BDNF

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 200212

FireAcresStartCause
Kraft Springs Fire69,900Aug 30, 2002Natural
KraftSprings Fire69,447
Line Creek Fire9,700Jun 28, 2002Natural
Fox Creek Fire6,300Jul 11, 2002Natural
Red Waffle Fire5,859Jul 14, 2002Human
Cow Creek Fire5,495Sep 4, 2002Natural
Pishkun Fire5,000Feb 21, 2002Human
Unnamed Fire4,277Sep 4, 2002Natural
Steamboat Fire2,921Jul 16, 2002Human
Whitewater Fire1,652Apr 15, 2002Human
Brushlake Fire1,200May 3, 2002Human
Cap Rock 2 Fire1,000Apr 13, 2002Natural

Every fire of 2002 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.