Wildfires of 2009

Big Branch Fire

2009Pike County, KentuckyWildfire

The Big Branch Fire burned 1,500 acres in Pike County, Kentucky, in 2009. It was discovered on April 25, 2009, and contained on April 25, 2009. The cause was recorded as debris and open burning.

Size
1,500 acres
Discovered
April 25, 2009
Contained
April 25, 2009
Cause
Human

Map

The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 520 acres. Point of origin as reported, 37.499, -82.199.

The record

Reported final size
1,500 acres
Burned area mapped by MTBS
520 acres
Discovered
April 25, 2009, 3:00 p.m. local time
Contained
April 25, 2009, 3:00 p.m. local time
Cause
Human, Debris and open burning
State
Kentucky
County
Pike County
Reporting unit
Kentucky Division of Forestry
Agency
State or local agency
Incident type
Wildfire
MTBS fire identifier
KY3750508220020090425
MTBS assessment
Initial (SS)
Fire occurrence record
SFO-2009-KYKYS19520099031

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 Kentucky in 20091

FireAcresStartCause
Arnold Fork Fire1,160Apr 26, 2009Human

Every fire of 2009 Kentucky 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.