The most interesting Satellite Observations of Forest Fires

Fires in Wyoming

Lightning ignites scattered fires: 1996 Aug 26 01:16 UT
A large number of wildfires are started by lightning strikes, especially by storms with little rain. This late evening pass of NOAA-12 over Wyoming may have caught such storms in the act. A color composite image (387 Kb) shows what are probably small thunderstorms passing over the state. The cloud tops appear yellow in this color combination since they are high enough to be cold. The land below is much warmer and its infrared glow appears blue in this image. These clouds would have been ignored except that very early the next morning a number of small scattered fires were seen in the area. What is probably an early view of one is seen on the channel 3 view barely visible as a bright spot through a hole in the middle of the dark mass of clouds.

Storms clear out and fires are seen: 1996 Aug 26 09:47 UT
By 09:47 UT, 8 1/2 hours later, the storm are mostly gone and about half a dozen small fires are seen on the channel 3 view. One of these fires matches the position of the bright spot seen on last evenings channel 3 view. The Hot Spot map shows the locations of detected hot spots on a shaded relief map but some of the fires are so tiny that they are very hard to find on this map so the hot spot markers are enlarged on a Hot Spot Finder map which makes it easy to locate even the smallest detected hot spot.

Fires spread: 1996 Aug 27 09:36 UT
24 hours later the fires have spread as seen on the channel 3 view. The Hot Spot map and Hot Spot Finder map tell the same story. Some fires are no longer visible, some newly seen fires appear. One new fire is seen on the east side of the Big Horn Mountains.

This pass of NOAA-14 was directly over the area of interest so has the best possible resolution. It was also quite clear. This allows the fire area to be usefully enlarged as shown in the channel 3 view, the Hot Spot map and the Hot Spot Finder map. Note that some of the weaker fire areas are not detected on the Hot Spot map since the detection threshholds are set to avoid too many false positives. Something else interesting may be done with such a good pass, it may be displayed in 3-d. The display technique used here is called cross_eyed stereo. When you understand how to view such images you can see a map of the area in 3-d and also the channel 3 image in 3-d. The 3-d images shown for this area all have a vertical exaggeration of 2 times.

Fires continue: 1996 Aug 28 09:24 UT
Another 24 hours goes by and the fires are still burning. The channel 3 view is partially blocked by clouds but shows changes in the last 24 hours.

Some fires visible between clouds: 1996 Aug 29 09:13 UT
Most of the fire areas are block by clouds but a few fires are seen on the channel 3 view.

Daytime view of fire scars: 1996 Sep 08 20:34 UT
A color composite view of the fire area shows several fairly large scars which appear as dark blue patches. The scars are bigger then the fires on any single view since the scars are the cumulative effect of all the area burned over time, it was never all burning at the same time. A shaded relief map of the state helps show where the fires occured. A closeup view of the fire scars gives an even better idea of their location relative to the rivers and mountains of this part of Wyoming.

We can also view the fire scars in 3-d.

List of images
This section gives a convenient list of the images discussed above, plus a few extras.

1996 Aug 26 01:16 UT     NOAA-12 Evening     Storm clouds

1996 Aug 26 09:47 UT     NOAA-14 nighttime     Fire

1996 Aug 27 09:36 UT     NOAA-14 nighttime     Fire

1996 Aug 28 09:24 UT     NOAA-14 nighttime     Fire

1996 Aug 29 09:13 UT     NOAA-14 nighttime     Fire

1996 Sep 08 20:34 UT     NOAA-14 Daytime     Fire Scars

3-d views