Fires in Los Angeles County

Natural Color - September 3, 2009
False Color - September 3, 2009

The Station Fire, which raged in the hills north of the city of Los Angeles, left behind a changed landscape. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite acquired these true- and false-color images on September 3, 2009. The true-color image (top) shows skies choked with thick smoke north of the city. The white outline in the true-color image indicates the area covered by the false color image immediately below. This image combines shortwave-infrared light, near-infrared light, and red light. In this image, a purple-red burn scar fills most of the image, outlined by deep pink hotspots showing the fire’s actively burning front. Land not yet burned appears bright green.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 Team. Caption by Michon Scott.