Noatak Grand Canyon Fire
The Noatak Grand Canyon Fire burned 4,626 acres in Alaska, in 2012. It was discovered on June 5, 2012, and contained on June 18, 2012. MTBS dates its ignition to June 6, 2012. The cause was recorded as natural.
- Size
- 4,626 acres
- Discovered
- June 5, 2012
- Contained
- June 18, 2012
- Cause
- Natural
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 4,566 acres. Point of origin as reported, 67.877, -160.731.
The record
- Reported final size
- 4,626 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 4,566 acres
- Area inside the final perimeter
- 4,577 acres
- Discovered
- June 5, 2012, 6:25 p.m. local time
- Ignition (MTBS)
- June 6, 2012
- Contained
- June 18, 2012, 5:48 p.m. local time
- Cause
- Natural
- State
- Alaska
- Land ownership at origin
- National Park Service
- Reporting unit
- Noatak Preserve
- Agency
- Bureau of Land Management
- Unit
- AKGAD
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- Unique fire identifier
- 2012-AKGAD-000157
- MTBS fire identifier
- AK6788316073320120606
- MTBS assessment
- Initial
- Fire occurrence record
- W-651508
- Perimeter map method
- Image Interpretation
- Note on the perimeter
- Minor edits to NPS-provided perimeter. Edit date not specified.
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 June 14, 2012 to November 6, 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.
- Cause on the reports
- Lightning or other natural
- Primary fuel model reported
- Short Grass (1 foot)
- Suppression strategy reported
- Monitor
Acres reported by day
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 14, 2012 | 4,400 | |
| Jun 18, 2012 | 4,400 | |
| Nov 6, 2012 | 4,626 |
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 |
| Little Indian River Fire | 15,278 | Jun 6, 2012 | Natural |
| 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 |
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. 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.