Parks Hwy Fire
The Parks Hwy Fire burned 118,520 acres in Alaska, in 2006. It was discovered on June 7, 2006, and contained on October 1, 2006. The cause was recorded as debris and open burning. Incident teams reported 16 structures destroyed.
- Size
- 118,520 acres
- Discovered
- June 7, 2006
- Contained
- October 1, 2006
- Cause
- Human
- Structures destroyed
- 16
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 125,198 acres. Point of origin as reported, 64.370, -149.030.
The record
- Reported final size
- 118,520 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 125,198 acres
- Area inside the final perimeter
- 130,186 acres
- Discovered
- June 7, 2006, 3:00 p.m. local time
- Contained
- October 1, 2006, 3:00 p.m. local time
- Cause
- Human, Debris and open burning
- State
- Alaska
- Land ownership at origin
- Private
- Reporting unit
- Alaska Fire Service
- Agency
- DVF
- Unit
- AKFAS
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- Unique fire identifier
- 2006-AKFAS-000163
- MTBS fire identifier
- AK6447814879320060607
- MTBS assessment
- Extended
- Fire occurrence record
- W-548562
- Perimeter map method
- Image Analysis
- Note on the perimeter
- Perimeter modified with aide of Landsat imagery, and fuels specialist from fire IMT.
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: 33, from June 8, 2006 to November 28, 2006. 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
- 16 (2 residences, 14 other)
- Most structures threatened at once
- 454
- Injuries
- 7
- Most personnel assigned
- 569 on June 17, 2006
- Most aircraft assigned
- 7
- People evacuated, at the most
- Evacuations were reported; no count was filed
- Cost reported by the teams
- $9.7 million, in 2006 dollars
- Cause on the reports
- Human
- Primary fuel model reported
- Timber (Litter and Understory)
Acres reported by day
The largest rise between two days’ reports was 22,000 acres, on June 23, 2006.
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 8, 2006 | 1,600 | |
| Jun 9, 2006 | 17,900 | +16,300 |
| Jun 10, 2006 | 32,000 | +14,100 |
| Jun 11, 2006 | 41,000 | +9,000 |
| Jun 12, 2006 | 45,800 | +4,800 |
| Jun 13, 2006 | 51,700 | +5,900 |
| Jun 14, 2006 | 65,500 | +13,800 |
| Jun 15, 2006 | 65,500 | 0 |
| Jun 16, 2006 | 70,269 | +4,769 |
| Jun 17, 2006 | 70,269 | 0 |
| Jun 18, 2006 | 70,432 | +163 |
| Jun 19, 2006 | 70,432 | 0 |
| Jun 20, 2006 | 70,432 | 0 |
| Jun 21, 2006 | 83,500 | +13,068 |
| Jun 22, 2006 | 83,500 | 0 |
| Jun 23, 2006 | 105,500 | +22,000 |
| Jun 24, 2006 | 105,500 | 0 |
| Jun 25, 2006 | 110,100 | +4,600 |
| Jun 26, 2006 | 110,100 | 0 |
| Jun 27, 2006 | 110,100 | 0 |
| Jun 28, 2006 | 112,500 | +2,400 |
| Jun 29, 2006 | 114,900 | +2,400 |
| Jun 30, 2006 | 115,500 | +600 |
| Jul 1, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Jul 2, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Jul 3, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Jul 4, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Jul 5, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Jul 6, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Jul 7, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Jul 8, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Jul 9, 2006 | 115,500 | 0 |
| Nov 28, 2006 | 130,186 |
Other large fires in Alaska in 200610
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nageethluk River Fire | 52,540 | May 31, 2006 | Natural |
| Coleen River Fire | 15,819 | Jun 15, 2006 | Natural |
| Grass River Fire | 14,880 | Jul 10, 2006 | Natural |
| Little Delta River Fire | 14,200 | May 15, 2006 | Natural |
| Dennison Fire | 13,200 | Jun 18, 2006 | Natural |
| Koness River Fire | 9,725 | Jun 15, 2006 | Natural |
| Takslesluk North Fire | 4,017 | Jul 7, 2006 | Natural |
| North Horn Fire | 2,730 | Jul 6, 2006 | Natural |
| Fairplay Fire | 2,095 | Jul 11, 2006 | Natural |
| Meshik River Fire | 1,310 | May 22, 2006 | Human |
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. 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.