Alaska’s firefighters were busy in mid-June 2004, as extreme lightning activity earlier in the month triggered dozens of wildfires across the state. The largest fires were burning in the Yukon Flats region in the east-central part of the state. This Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from the sensor on the Aqua satellite shows the region on June 22, with areas where the sensor detected active fire circled in red. The largest fire is in the northern part of the scene. According to daily briefings from the Alaska Fire Service, the Pingo Fire (top of the image) made “significant runs to the northeast, gaining 15,890 acres” between mapping periods on June 20 and 22.
Image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center
