Little Indian River Fire
The Little Indian River Fire burned 15,278 acres in Alaska, in 2012. It was discovered on June 6, 2012, and contained on July 29, 2012. The cause was recorded as natural.
- Size
- 15,278 acres
- Discovered
- June 6, 2012
- Contained
- July 29, 2012
- Cause
- Natural
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 15,974 acres. Point of origin as reported, 65.748, -154.264.
The record
- Reported final size
- 15,278 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 15,974 acres
- Area inside the final perimeter
- 15,278 acres
- Discovered
- June 6, 2012, 11:51 a.m. local time
- Contained
- July 29, 2012, 12:41 p.m. local time
- Cause
- Natural
- State
- Alaska
- Land ownership at origin
- Fish and Wildlife Service
- Reporting unit
- Alaska Fire Service
- Agency
- Bureau of Land Management
- Unit
- AKTAD
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- Unique fire identifier
- 2012-AKTAD-000173
- MTBS fire identifier
- AK6574815426420120606
- MTBS assessment
- Initial (SS)
- Fire occurrence record
- W-640735
- Perimeter map method
- Not Recorded
- 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: 13, from June 6, 2012 to July 29, 2012. 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
- $6,562, in 2012 dollars
- Cause on the reports
- Lightning or other natural
- Primary fuel model reported
- Timber (Grass and Understory)
- Suppression strategy reported
- Monitor
Acres reported by day
The largest rise between two days’ reports was 5,123 acres, on June 8, 2012.
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 6, 2012 | 600 | |
| Jun 7, 2012 | 2,500 | +1,900 |
| Jun 8, 2012 | 7,623 | +5,123 |
| Jun 14, 2012 | 12,526 | |
| Jun 21, 2012 | 12,531 | |
| Jun 28, 2012 | 14,870 | |
| Jul 5, 2012 | 14,870 | |
| Jul 12, 2012 | 14,870 | |
| Jul 19, 2012 | 14,870 | |
| Jul 26, 2012 | 14,870 | |
| Jul 29, 2012 | 15,278 |
Other large fires in Alaska in 201212
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uvgoon Creek 1 Fire | 49,305 | Jul 3, 2012 | Natural |
| Dry Creek Fire | 47,154 | Jun 23, 2012 | Natural |
| Hogatza River Fire | 24,179 | Jun 16, 2012 | Natural |
| Nowitna River Fire | 22,366 | Jun 16, 2012 | Natural |
| Kucher Creek Fire | 18,850 | Jun 18, 2012 | Natural |
| Snake River Fire | 16,566 | Nov 2, 2012 | Human |
| Kungiakrok Creek Fire | 12,856 | ||
| Industrial Park Fire | 10,222 | Sep 25, 2012 | Human |
| Marie Creek Fire | 9,668 | Jun 5, 2012 | Natural |
| Bear Creek #4 Fire | 8,522 | Jun 23, 2012 | Natural |
| Midnight Creek Fire | 7,927 | Jun 25, 2012 | Natural |
| Nekakte Fire | 6,298 | Jun 7, 2012 | Natural |
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.