Government Pond Fire
The Government Pond Fire burned 550 acres in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, in 2009. It was discovered on January 20, 2009, and contained on January 20, 2009. The cause was recorded as arson/incendiarism.
- Size
- 550 acres
- Discovered
- January 20, 2009
- Contained
- January 20, 2009
- Cause
- Human
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 1,561 acres. Point of origin as reported, 30.974, -93.123.
The record
- Reported final size
- 550 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 1,561 acres
- Discovered
- January 20, 2009, 12:50 p.m. local time
- Contained
- January 20, 2009, 8:00 p.m. local time
- Cause
- Human, Arson/incendiarism
- State
- Louisiana
- County
- Vernon Parish
- Land ownership at origin
- Forest Service
- Reporting unit
- Kisatchie National Forest
- Agency
- Forest Service
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- MTBS fire identifier
- LA3100109311820090120
- MTBS assessment
- Initial
- Fire occurrence record
- FS-1475452
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: 3, from January 20, 2009 to January 25, 2009. 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.
- Cost reported by the teams
- $8,000, in 2009 dollars
- Cause on the reports
- Human
- Primary fuel model reported
- Timber (Grass and Understory)
- Suppression strategy reported
- Full suppression
Acres reported by day
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 20, 2009 | 400 | |
| Jan 22, 2009 | 550 | |
| Jan 25, 2009 | 550 |
Other large fires in Louisiana in 20097
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dog House Fire | 6,365 | Jul 18, 2009 | Natural |
| Targa Fire | 3,440 | Mar 2, 2009 | |
| Back Ridge East Fire | 3,253 | Jul 16, 2009 | Natural |
| Hollis Birthday Fire | 2,363 | Aug 11, 2009 | Natural |
| Slidell Airport Fire | 1,922 | Mar 7, 2009 | |
| Cameron Meadows Fire | 1,523 | Mar 7, 2009 | |
| Unnamed Fire | 1,377 | Mar 8, 2009 |
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.