Line Fire (2024): Why a sheriff’s snapshot is smaller than the final Line Fire

San Bernardino County’s retrospective includes a snapshot of 39,232 acres at 57% containment. CAL FIRE lists 43,978 acres in its incident archive. Both describe the Line Fire, but they answer questions about different moments.

Incident record

Reported start5 September 2024
Location in the incident recordBaseline Street and Alpine Street, North of City of Highland
County listingSan Bernardino
Reported footprint43,978 acres
Recorded containment100%

Why a sheriff’s snapshot is smaller than the final Line Fire

Substituting the final perimeter for the earlier figure would give officials knowledge they did not yet have when evacuation decisions were being made. The 4,746-acre difference is a change in the reported total, not a measure of land burned while any one zone was evacuated.

Sources