Atoka Lake Fire
The Atoka Lake Fire burned 5,700 acres in Atoka County, Oklahoma, in 2008. It was discovered on October 31, 2008, and contained on November 10, 2008. The cause was recorded as human.
- Size
- 5,700 acres
- Discovered
- October 31, 2008
- Contained
- November 10, 2008
- Cause
- Human
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 3,477 acres. Point of origin as reported, 34.464, -95.994.
The record
- Reported final size
- 5,700 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 3,477 acres
- Discovered
- October 31, 2008, 6:00 p.m. local time
- Contained
- November 10, 2008, 9:00 a.m. local time
- Cause
- Human, Undetermined
- State
- Oklahoma
- County
- Atoka County
- Land ownership at origin
- State
- Reporting unit
- Oklahoma Division of Forestry
- Agency
- State or local agency
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- MTBS fire identifier
- OK3449909612520081031
- MTBS assessment
- Initial
- Fire occurrence record
- ICS209_2008_OK-OKS-SE 041010
- Note on the perimeter
- Renamed from UNK-34518-096133-20081121 to OK-OKS-SE041010-20081031
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: 7, from November 2, 2008 to November 24, 2008. 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.
- Most structures threatened at once
- 46
- Most personnel assigned
- 21 on November 7, 2008
- Cause on the reports
- Human
- Primary fuel model reported
- Timber (Grass and Understory)
- Suppression strategy reported
- Point zone protection
Acres reported by day
The largest rise between two days’ reports was 2,060 acres, on November 6, 2008.
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 2, 2008 | 800 | |
| Nov 4, 2008 | 2,800 | |
| Nov 5, 2008 | 2,900 | +100 |
| Nov 6, 2008 | 4,960 | +2,060 |
| Nov 7, 2008 | 5,000 | +40 |
| Nov 12, 2008 | 5,700 | |
| Nov 24, 2008 | 5,700 |
Other large fires in Oklahoma in 200812
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed Fire | 10,394 | Mar 1, 2008 | |
| Unnamed Fire | 6,455 | Apr 25, 2008 | |
| Wild Horses Fire | 6,325 | Nov 6, 2008 | Human |
| Unnamed Fire | 6,274 | Apr 25, 2008 | |
| Goff Creek Fire | 5,400 | Jun 10, 2008 | Human |
| Byron Fire | 5,015 | Feb 25, 2008 | |
| Unnamed Fire | 5,000 | Apr 20, 2008 | Human |
| Arbuckle Mountains Fire | 4,500 | Mar 12, 2008 | Human |
| Unnamed Fire | 4,000 | Mar 14, 2008 | Human |
| Unnamed Fire | 3,879 | Mar 24, 2008 | |
| Unnamed Fire | 3,601 | Mar 1, 2008 | |
| 4 Mile Road Fire | 3,412 | Feb 1, 2008 | 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.