Wildfire Black Box · Historical record · United States
The Rim Fire began on August 17, 2013, and burned 257,314 acres across the central Sierra Nevada. This record examines its timeline, damage and Yosemite impacts, then separates operational observations from later research on fuel treatments.
Record: TB-WBB-USA-2013-RIM · Reviewed: September 30, 2026 · Historical evidence, not live emergency information.
Rim Fire 2013: key facts
| Field | Recorded finding | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Start | August 17, 2013; CAL FIRE records 3:25 p.m. | CAL FIRE |
| Area burned | 257,314 acres | CAL FIRE; Forest Service summary |
| Cause | Escaped campfire | Forest Service summary |
| Structures burned | 11 residences, 3 commercial properties and 98 outbuildings | Forest Service summary |
| Full containment | October 24, 2013 in the Forest Service retrospective; a conflicting date remains on the CAL FIRE incident page | See date reconciliation below |
Keep the damage categories intact: 112 burned structures does not mean 112 homes. Likewise, total incident acreage should not be presented as acreage burned inside Yosemite National Park.
Timeline: what was known, and when?
| Event or observation | Evidence and interpretation |
|---|---|
| August 17, 2013 | Ignition. The later Forest Service summary identifies an escaped campfire as the cause. This retrospective finding is distinct from what an early incident bulletin may have established. |
| August 22, 2013 | NPS reports evacuation of the Hodgdon Meadow community as the fire threatened the area. Its retrospective describes approximately 15,000 acres of firing operations, timed for suitable weather. |
| August 20–September 4, 2013 | NASA’s VIIRS nighttime sequence documents changing fire activity and smoke. It is an observation window, not the entire incident duration. |
| October 24, 2013 | The Forest Service fuel-treatment report gives this as the official containment date. California’s December 3, 2013 disaster-declaration appeal independently reports that full containment was not reached until this date. |
| 2017 | Lydersen and colleagues publish a landscape analysis examining fuel treatments, earlier wildfire, weather, vegetation and water balance. |
Why do official containment dates disagree?
The CAL FIRE archive currently displays September 6, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. as both its last update and containment date. The Forest Service retrospective and California governor’s December 3, 2013 statement instead identify October 24. This record uses October 24 for full containment because two explicit accounts support it, while preserving the conflicting archive entry. The reason for that database discrepancy has not been established here. Containment should also not be silently relabeled as extinguishment.
Fire DNA: the relationships that matter
Ignition: a campfire origin. Landscape: a large incident spanning multiple jurisdictions. Exposure: communities and infrastructure within a forested setting. Evidence challenge: disentangling weather, past treatment and suppression operations when interpreting fire effects. These are analytical categories used by Tecnobosque, not an official incident classification.
Did prescribed fire help protect Hodgdon Meadow?
NPS describes a community containing residences, a campground, an entrance station and operational buildings. Its account reports no losses within the Hodgdon Meadow wildland–urban interface and observes that reduced surface fuels and a more open canopy influenced the fire’s path around treated areas. It also describes active firefighting and firing operations. The outcome therefore should not be attributed to a treatment in isolation. [3]
The later peer-reviewed study adds broader evidence: prescribed fire, particularly with thinning, was associated with lower proportions of high-severity fire. Previous low- to moderate-severity wildfire also reduced high-severity outcomes. Fire weather and the proportion of the landscape previously treated or burned were influential, and results varied with the spatial scale of analysis. [4]
Interpretation: this supports fuel management as a way to influence subsequent fire severity under the studied conditions. It does not supply a universal protective distance, a guaranteed safe community boundary or a percentage reduction transferable to every forest. A useful comparison must retain treatment history, weather and the scale at which outcomes were measured.
What satellite images can—and cannot—show
NASA’s nighttime sequence uses the Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band. It shows changing light from the fire and visible smoke, but illumination changes across the sequence: the August 20 full moon brightened the landscape, with darker conditions approaching the September 5 new moon. Thin clouds also obscured the September 1 view. Apparent differences between frames therefore cannot all be assigned to changes in burning. [5]
A bright nighttime image is not a household smoke-exposure measurement. A mapped fire footprint, an observation of active burning and a later severity assessment answer different questions. This record does not convert image brightness into fire intensity, air-quality concentration or building-level damage.
How to use this case in another wildfire study
- Record the date of the event separately from the date a source reported or analyzed it.
- Keep residential losses separate from other structures.
- Compare treatment outcomes alongside weather and suppression activity.
- Preserve conflicting official fields with an explanation of the chosen interpretation.
For related evidence problems, compare the Caldor Fire record on satellite progression and watershed evidence, and the Dixie Fire record on the evolution from incident reporting to later findings. Return to the Fire Archive for the full collection.
Primary sources and research
- CAL FIRE: Rim Fire incident archive. Start, area and the conflicting containment field.
- USDA Forest Service: 2013 Rim Fire Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Summary. Incident overview, origin, damage categories and containment date.
- NPS: Multiyear Prescribed Fire Treatments Protect Community during Rim Fire. Hodgdon Meadow observations and response.
- Lydersen et al. (2017): Evidence of fuels management and fire weather influencing fire severity in an extreme fire event. Ecological Applications 27(7), 2013–2030; DOI: 10.1002/eap.1586.
- NASA Scientific Visualization Studio: 2013 Rim Fire. Nighttime observation sequence and interpretation limits.
- California governor’s office: December 3, 2013 disaster-declaration appeal. Independent corroboration of October 24 containment.
Method: source-based historical synthesis. No original field investigation, causal experiment or live incident monitoring is claimed. Missing values are not treated as zero, and findings are attributed to their issuing sources.
Cite this record: Tecnobosque. “Rim Fire 2013: Timeline, Damage & Fuel Treatment Evidence.” Reviewed September 30, 2026. https://tecnobosque.com/rim-fire-2013/