Forest Service, which have lower acreage requirements for recording fire perimeters. The USGS data comes from the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. However, the pre-1950 information shown here is incomplete and should not be used for further analysis.Ĭal Fire’s data on this map shows timber fires that burned more than 10 acres, brush fires that burned more than 50 acres and grass fires that burned more than 300 acres. Perimeter information from fires that started between 18 comes from Cal Fire, while information on the Thomas Fire and fires that started in 2018 comes from the USGS.Ĭal Fire says that their dataset - which runs from 1878 to 2017 as of January 2019 - is the most complete dataset of California wildfire perimeters before 1950. The wildfires are categorized by the year in which they started. This map shows the perimeters of wildfires that have burned in California from 1878 to 2018 using data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the U.S.

Large areas of desert in the southeast are mostly untouched due to lack of vegetation. It seems as if there is very little of California that has not been touched by wildfire.

The map below shows all the cumulative fires from 1878 to 2018. Here is an interesting interactive graphic that depicts perimeters of more than 100 years of California wildfires recorded by Cal Fire and the U.S.

Map of fire in california