May 4, 2016JPEG
On May 4, 2016, the the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) on the Landsat 7 satellite acquired this false-color image of the wildfire that burned through Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. The image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (bands 5-4-2). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke to reveal the hot spots associated with active fires, which appear red. Smoke appears white and burned areas appear brown.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Caption by Kathryn Hansen.
The Fort McMurray fire continued to spread, burning 850 square kilometers by the morning of May 5, 2016.
The fire in Alberta, Canada, had burned 2,410 square kilometers of land by May 12, 2016.
A wildfire burned through neighborhoods in Fort McMurray, Alberta, displacing tens of thousands of residents.
More than two weeks since wildfires first broke out in Fort McMurray, the burned area continues to grow larger as fires still spread under warm, dry conditions.