Envirocast® Bulletin for July 3, 2007

Wildfire at Lake Tahoe Aftermath

The image in this Envirocast® Bulletin was taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) onboard NASA's Terra satellite on June 29, 2007.  The image shows the burn scar left by the wildfire in the South Tahoe, CA area.

Lake Tahoe Wildfire Burn Scar

The burn scar from the Angora fire can be clearly seen as a long gray patch in the center of the image, and the southern tip of Lake Tahoe can be seen at the top of the image.  It can also be seen where the fire affected residential areas, most notably in the lower center portion of the image.

Environmental Impacts:

  • The Angora fire was located two miles southwest of South Lake Tahoe, CA, and it burned 3,100 acres and destroyed 309 structures, many of them homes.

  • At one point when battling the blaze there were 1,889 fire personnel, aided by 7 helicopters and more than 100 fire engines.

  • Mandatory evacuations were ordered for several South Tahoe neighborhoods, police said.  About 250 homes and about 2,000 people were evacuated.

  • The U.S. Forest Service has determined that the fire was started by an illegal campfire.

Supplementary Material:

NASA's TERRA Satellite:

  • The Terra spacecraft (formally known as EOS-AM) was successfully launched on Saturday, December 19, 1999 at the Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in Lompoc, California. It is flying at an altitude of 705 km (438 miles) observing the Earth. The life expectancy of the Terra mission is 6 years. It will be followed in later years by other EOS spacecraft that take advantage of new developments in remote sensing technologies. [Terra 3D Animation], [Animation showing Terra Orbit]

  • Terra's orbit around the Earth is timed so that it passes from north to south across the equator in the morning, and thus it passes over us at the same local time every day, approximately 10:30-10:45 a.m.

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