Wildfires of 2002

Sudden Ranch Fire

2002Santa Barbara County, CaliforniaWildfire

The Sudden Ranch Fire burned 7,782 acres in Santa Barbara County, California, in 2002. It was discovered on June 15, 2002.

Size
7,782 acres
Discovered
June 15, 2002
Cause
Undetermined

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 7,859 acres. Point of origin as reported, 34.559, -120.527.

The record

Reported final size
7,782 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
7,859 acres
Area inside the final perimeter
7,503 acres
Discovered
June 15, 2002, 1:20 p.m. local time
Cause
Undetermined
State
California
County
Santa Barbara County
Land ownership at origin
Forest Service
Reporting unit
Los Padres National Forest
Agency
Department of Defense
Unit
CAAFV
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
CA3455012052820020615
MTBS assessment
Initial
Fire occurrence record
ICS209_2002_CA-AFV-0364
Perimeter map method
GPS Ground
Perimeter records
2 on file for this fire; the largest is shown

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 200212

FireAcresStartCause
Mcnally Fire150,696Jul 21, 2002Human
Pines Fire61,690Jul 29, 2002Human
Williams Fire37,240Sep 22, 2002Human
Copper Fire23,407Jun 5, 2002Human
Cannon Fire23,020Jun 15, 2002Human
Wolf Fire21,645Jun 1, 2002Human
Curve Fire20,857Sep 1, 2002Human
Slinkard Fire8,600Jul 13, 2002Natural
Bluecut Fire6,864Jun 16, 2002Human
Louisiana Fire6,559Jun 26, 2002Human
Inyo Complex (Fuller) Fire6,400Jul 11, 2002Natural
Gavilan Fire5,763Feb 10, 2002Human

Every fire of 2002 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.