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State of the Climate
U.S. Wildfire
August 2003

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Climatic Data Center

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U.S. Wildfire Report
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U.S. Wildfire Report

Fires in the Northwest Rockies
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During the first half of August, and especially in the middle third of the month, wildfire activity increased in parts of the northern Rockies. Especially hard hit was the Missoula, Montana area where some evacuations were necessary. In Montana, on August 21st there were 25 large fires burning, 7 of which had already scorched over 20,000 acres apiece. Two of those fires had burned over 40,000 acres each. Over 340,000 acres have burned in Montana as of August 21st. Large fires were also burning in Idaho and Wyoming. At the end of the month, the northern Rockies were still the focus of fire activity in the nation.

As of September 1 Nationwide Number of Fires Nationwide Number of Acres Burned
2003 44,823 2,695,156
2002 62,549 6,334,283
2001 58,340 2,913,761
10-year Average 62,880 3,523,932

Seasonal (January 1-September 1st) wildfire statistics, according to the National Interagency Fire Center are in the table to the right.

Questions?

For questions on technical or scientific content of this report, please contact:

Karsten Shein:
Karsten.Shein@noaa.gov

For general climate monitoring questions, please contact:

CMB.Contact@noaa.gov

For climate data orders, please contact the National Climatic Data Center's Climate Services and Monitoring Division:

NCDC.Orders@noaa.gov

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