Wildfires in Southern California

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite took the above images of wildfires near Los Angeles on Monday September 19, 2006. Locations where MODIS detected active fire are outlined in red.

False-color Image of the Wildfires

In the false-color image, combination of infrared bands from MODIS have been added to the image to make burn scars (deep red) stand out better from vegetation (bright green), naturally bare or thinly vegetated ground (pale pink or tan) and smoke (light blue).

Zoom-out View

The smoke plume of the Day Fire extended 127 miles to northeast.

False-color Image of the Wildfires

The burn scar on the right was from the Sawtooth Complex and Millard Complex Fires in July

Environmental Impacts:

• The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite took above image of wildfires in southern Montana on September 20, 2006.

• The Day fire is 22 miles northwest of Santa Clarita, CA. The fire has burned 97,685 acres, is 20% contained, and 2,109 fire personnel are fighting the blaze. Campgrounds, power and gas lines, communication sites, and archeological sites are threatened by the fire.

• The Pinnacles fire  is 4 miles northwest of Lake Arrowhead, CA. The fire has burned 2,500 acres and is 10% contained.

• There are currently 31 active large fires (greater than 500 acres) burning in the United States with the most threatened states being Washington, California, Idaho, and Oregon.

• So far this year there have been 82,599 fires which have burned 8,968,517 acres of land.