Forest fires continued to burn in the mountains of northern California in August 2008. Many of these fires began in late June 2008 during a weekend of extreme lightning activity. This natural-color image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on August 3, 2008. Places where MODIS detected active fires are outlined in red. Smoke pools in many of the canyons. According to the August 4 situation report from the National Interagency Fire Center, the fires labeled in the scene affected an area just under 335,000 acres.
The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides daily images of the region in additional resolutions and formats.
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
