SWIR - August 3, 2015JPEG

True Color - August 3, 2015JPEG

SWIR

True Color

SWIR - August 3, 2015JPEG

True Color - August 3, 2015JPEG

Several large wildfires have charred tens of thousands of acres in northern California. The largest, the Rocky fire, had burned about 67,000 acres (27,000 hectares) in Lake, Yolo, and Colusa counties as of the evening of August 4, 2015.

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite collected these images on August 3, 2015. The top image is a false-color composite based on observations of short-wave infrared and near-infrared light. The lower image shows the scene in natural color.

The Rocky fire has destroyed 39 homes and threatens nearly 7,000 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

1. Further Reading

2. Los Angeles Times (2015, August 4) Thunderstorms may challenge firefighters battling 65,000-acre Rocky fire. Accessed August 5, 2015.
3. Wired (2015, August 3) The Hellish Beauty of California’s Wildfires. August 5, 2015.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Caption by Adam Voiland.