Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in British Columbia in the first week of August 2009 because of hundreds of forest fires. According to news reports, officials were prepared to bring in firefighters from surrounding provinces, the United States, and even Australia, to control the blazes if needed. This image of the area was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on August 3, 2009. Places where the sensor detected fires are marked in red. Smoke traces out the area’s deep valleys.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
