Southwest of Fort Peck Reservoir in eastern Montana, just east of where the Musselshell River flows in from the south (bottom center of images) to join the Missouri, a few small fires (red dots) detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 19, 2003 (top image), burned rapidly toward each other over the course of the day. By July 20 (bottom image) the Missouri Breaks Complex Fire—composed of the Big Coulee, Ghost Coulee, Indian, and Germaine Fires—had grown explosively. By July 21, it had grown to more than 80, 000 acres of timber and grassland, forcing evacuations from 23 homes.
The high-resolution images provided above are 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides these images at MODIS? maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters: July 19, July 20.
Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
