Wildfires of 2003

Chippewa Prairie Fire

2003Chippewa County, MinnesotaWildfire

The Chippewa Prairie Fire burned 3,191 acres in Chippewa County, Minnesota, in 2003. It was discovered on April 12, 2003. The cause was recorded as debris and open burning.

Size
3,191 acres
Discovered
April 12, 2003
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 2,065 acres. Point of origin as reported, 45.128, -95.983.

The record

Reported final size
3,191 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
2,065 acres
Discovered
April 12, 2003
Cause
Human, Debris and open burning
State
Minnesota
County
Chippewa County
Land ownership at origin
Private
Reporting unit
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Agency
State or local agency
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
MN4514609601020030412
MTBS assessment
Initial
Fire occurrence record
SFO-MN0349-1961

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 Minnesota in 200312

FireAcresStartCause
Reiner 36 Fire38,753Apr 9, 2003Human
Canada Fire15,000Mar 29, 2003Human
Caribou Fire12,680Apr 10, 2003Human
Unnamed Fire11,529May 1, 2003
Units 37 38 39 A Fire4,878Apr 23, 2003
Unnamed Fire2,991May 16, 2003
Rothsay Fire2,855Oct 7, 2003Human
Units 34 33 W Fire2,646Apr 10, 2003
Elm Lake Fire2,354Oct 22, 2003
Tamarac Fire2,220Apr 30, 2003
Agassiz Fire2,150May 3, 2003Human
Gully Fire2,140Apr 9, 2003Human

Every fire of 2003 Minnesota fire history

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.