Caribou Hills Fire
The Caribou Hills Fire burned 56,254 acres in Alaska, in 2007. It was discovered on June 19, 2007, and contained on July 19, 2007. The cause was recorded as human. Incident teams reported 197 structures destroyed.
- Size
- 56,254 acres
- Discovered
- June 19, 2007
- Contained
- July 19, 2007
- Cause
- Human
- Structures destroyed
- 197
Map
The final perimeter from the Interagency Fire Perimeter History, 55,438 acres, mapped by gps. Point of origin as reported, 60.000, -151.280.
The record
- Reported final size
- 56,254 acres
- Area inside the final perimeter
- 55,438 acres
- Discovered
- June 19, 2007, 5:34 p.m. local time
- Contained
- July 19, 2007, 4:00 p.m. local time
- Cause
- Human, Undetermined
- State
- Alaska
- Land ownership at origin
- Private
- Reporting unit
- Alaska Fire Service
- Agency
- DVF
- Unit
- AKKKS
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- Unique fire identifier
- 2007-AKKKS-000278
- Fire occurrence record
- W-554154
- Perimeter map method
- GPS
- Note on the perimeter
- None Recorded
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: 17, from June 20, 2007 to July 5, 2007. 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
- 197 (88 residences, 109 other)
- Most structures threatened at once
- 1,603
- Injuries
- 8
- Most personnel assigned
- 626 on June 27, 2007
- Most aircraft assigned
- 6
- People evacuated, at the most
- Evacuations were reported; no count was filed
- Cost reported by the teams
- $7.1 million, in 2007 dollars
- Cause on the reports
- Human
- Primary fuel model reported
- Timber (Grass and Understory)
Acres reported by day
The largest rise between two days’ reports was 38,000 acres, on June 22, 2007.
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 20, 2007 | 4,000 | |
| Jun 21, 2007 | 12,000 | +8,000 |
| Jun 22, 2007 | 50,000 | +38,000 |
| Jun 23, 2007 | 52,000 | +2,000 |
| Jun 24, 2007 | 52,000 | 0 |
| Jun 25, 2007 | 55,000 | +3,000 |
| Jun 26, 2007 | 55,222 | +222 |
| Jun 27, 2007 | 55,222 | 0 |
| Jun 28, 2007 | 55,222 | 0 |
| Jun 29, 2007 | 55,222 | 0 |
| Jun 30, 2007 | 55,222 | 0 |
| Jul 1, 2007 | 55,438 | +216 |
| Jul 2, 2007 | 55,438 | 0 |
| Jul 3, 2007 | 55,438 | 0 |
| Jul 4, 2007 | 55,438 | 0 |
| Jul 5, 2007 | 55,638 | +200 |
From Wikipedia
The Caribou Hills Fire was a 2007 wildfire that burned near Ninilchik, Alaska, and expanded extremely rapidly, making it at one point the top firefighting priority in the United States. It soon moved toward the town and at its peak threatened approximately 300 structures.
Text from Wikipedia, “2007 Caribou Hills Fire”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Quoted as written; the full article has the rest.
Other large fires in Alaska in 200712
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anaktuvuk River Fire | 256,734 | Jul 16, 2007 | Natural |
| Coffee Can Lake Fire | 43,705 | Jul 5, 2007 | Natural |
| Little Delta Fire | 33,452 | Apr 29, 2007 | Human |
| Woodchopper 2 Wfu Fire | 22,011 | Jun 6, 2007 | Natural |
| Mooseheart Fire | 21,508 | May 23, 2007 | Natural |
| Coleen Fire | 20,937 | Jul 9, 2007 | Natural |
| Ladue Fire | 19,246 | ||
| Hodzana River Fire | 18,050 | May 22, 2007 | Natural |
| Little Big Creek Fire | 17,717 | Jul 8, 2007 | Natural |
| Runt Creek Fire | 9,807 | Jul 9, 2007 | Natural |
| Su River Fire | 8,494 | Jun 20, 2007 | Natural |
| Jordan Creek Fire | 8,404 | Jun 30, 2007 | Natural |
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. 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.