This loop of GOES-8 visible imagery shows several smoke plumes from wildfires burning across parts of Idaho and Montana on 02 September 1998. These smoke plumes fan out eastward and southeastward with time, driven by westerly and northwesterly winds around a ridge of high pressure over the Rockies. High cirrus clouds can also be seen moving southward and southwestward across the region.

Surface wind barbs are plotted in red (knots), and restrictions to surface visibility are plotted in yellow (H = haze, K = smoke). It can be seen that very few of the hourly surface reports indicated haze or smoke, making the satellite imagery a valuable tool for tracking the location and evolution of these potential avaition hazards.