The California fire season began on May 1, and already several dangerous wildfires are burning across the state. Pictured in this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from NASA’s Terra satellite on May 4, 2004, are the Cerritos Fire (top) and Eagle Fire (bottom) southeast of Los Angeles (visible as a large gray patch at upper left). The Cerritos Fire had active fire detections (red outlines) at both the northern and southern margins of the fire. It had destroyed at least 15 residences and impacted more than 15,000 acres as of Tuesday, May 4. The Eagle Fire, east of the city of Temecula, had claimed 14 residences, shut down the southbound lanes of Highway 79, and has left a dangerous trail of burned power poles and damaged electric lines along the highway.
The large-format image is the same spatial resolution as the image above, but shows a wider area of the state, including a large fire in Santa Barbara County.
Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center
