Birch Reservoir Fire
The Birch Reservoir Fire burned 4,000 acres in Oklahoma, in 2005. It was discovered on March 20, 2005, and contained on March 21, 2005. The cause was recorded as arson/incendiarism. Incident teams reported 1 structure destroyed.
- Size
- 4,000 acres
- Discovered
- March 20, 2005
- Contained
- March 21, 2005
- Cause
- Human
- Structures destroyed
- 1
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 3,218 acres. Point of origin as reported, 36.559, -96.183.
The record
- Reported final size
- 4,000 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 3,218 acres
- Discovered
- March 20, 2005, 11:00 a.m. local time
- Contained
- March 21, 2005, 7:23 a.m. local time
- Cause
- Human, Arson/incendiarism
- State
- Oklahoma
- Land ownership at origin
- Bureau of Indian Affairs
- Reporting unit
- Osage Agency
- Agency
- Bureau of Indian Affairs
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- MTBS fire identifier
- OK3655209619720050320
- MTBS assessment
- Initial
- Fire occurrence record
- W-387591
- Note on the perimeter
- Hard to determine perimeter due to limited scenes available
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: 2. 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
- 1 (1 residence)
- Structures damaged
- 4
- Most structures threatened at once
- 30
- Most personnel assigned
- 22 on March 20, 2005
- Cost reported by the teams
- $5,500, in 2005 dollars
Other large fires in Oklahoma in 200512
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Velma Complex | 26,000 | Nov 27, 2005 | |
| Cabiness Fire | 17,299 | Nov 8, 2005 | Human |
| Unnamed Fire | 15,408 | Apr 3, 2005 | |
| Unnamed Fire | 10,952 | Mar 18, 2005 | |
| Texanna Road Fire | 10,880 | Nov 27, 2005 | |
| Achille Fire | 10,000 | Dec 29, 2005 | Human |
| Wewoka Creek Fire | 9,600 | Dec 26, 2005 | Human |
| Bear Den Fire | 9,429 | Nov 27, 2005 | Human |
| Dripping Spring Fire | 9,080 | Nov 27, 2005 | Human |
| Proctor Fire | 7,680 | Nov 17, 2005 | Human |
| Antioch Fire | 7,000 | Nov 27, 2005 | Human |
| Pine Springs Fire | 6,400 | Dec 27, 2005 | 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.