Fires in Northern California

Fires in Northern California

In the mountains of northern California, several fires that began in July 2006 continued to burn at the end of August. This image of the region around the junction of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers shows the Uncles Complex Fire and the Bar Complex Fire on August 30, 2006. The image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Places where the sensor detected actively burning fire are outlined in red. Plumes of gray smoke drift southward. According to the daily report from the National Interagency Fire Center on August 31, the Bar Complex continued to threaten residences and historic mining sites; it was about 26,000 acres and 62 percent contained. The Uncles Complex was burning in old growth timber and threatening cabins; the blaze was about 17,000 acres and 35 percent contained.

This image has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The large image shows a wider area at the same resolution. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides images of the entire western United States at additional resolutions.

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center