Day Fire in Southern California

Day Fire in Southern California

The Day Fire had burned 13,646 acres of Los Padres National Forest by September 10, 2006, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image. The fire, outlined in red, started on September 4 in the mountains about 40 miles north of Los Angeles and 20 miles north of Santa Clarita, the cement-colored area below the fire in this image. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, the fire was burning though chaparral and scattered timber and was threatening structures and archeological sites. The burning woody material creates the thick, tan smoke seen here.

The large image provided above has a resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides daily images of California in a variety of resolutions.

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.