Parker 2 Fire (2017): mapping the 7,697-acre footprint

The archived outline of the Parker 2 Fire spans about 11.1 km from west to east and 7.0 km from south to north. CAL FIRE places the incident at southwest of Cedarville. The mapped boundary provides a second way to locate the event: it shows the extent around that reference location.

Start listed by CAL FIRE3 August 2017
County listingModoc
Reported area in hectares3,115 ha (converted from acres)
Extent of the mapped outline11.1 × 7.0 km (west–east × south–north)
Containment entry in the archive9 January 2018
Parker 2 Fire historical perimeter; north up. Approximate spans 11.1 by 7.0 kilometres.
Generalized historical perimeter. Source: NIFC interagency fire perimeter history.

What the perimeter shows

The longer dimension runs east–west and is about 1.6 times the shorter one. A circular buffer drawn around the incident point would hide that difference. A road or settlement at the same distance from the point could fall inside or outside the mapped footprint depending on its direction.

Two estimates of area

The incident report gives 7,697 acres; the interagency feature stores 7,693.3 GIS acres. The mapped value is 3.7 acres below the reported value (0.05%). This compares two published measurements, not two observation times. The difference cannot be read as fire growth.

A similar-sized fire for comparison

The Nickowitz Fire of 2015 is the closest match by reported acreage in this 100-case collection (7,509 acres). Its mapped spans are 10.2 by 6.9 km, west–east then south–north, versus 11.1 by 7.0 km here. The broad proportions are comparable. That does not establish that fuel, wind or suppression tactics were similar.

Sources and map method

Spans use the geographic extremes of a generalized boundary, converted to kilometres at its middle latitude. They are approximate map dimensions, not distances travelled by flames. The GIS acreage is the source attribute, not an area recalculated from the simplified outline.