Grass fire in Colorado
GOES-15 (GOES-West) and GOES-13 (GOES-East) Visible (0.63 µm) and Shortwave infrared (3.9 µm) images (above; click to play animation; also available as an MP4 movie file) showed the smoke plume and “hot spot” (dark black to red pixels) associated with a large and fast-burning grass fire in north-central Colorado on the afternoon of 18 September 2015. The smoke plume was more apparent in the GOES-13 visible images, due a more favorable “forward scattering” sun-satellite geometry. The fire burned an estimated 12,669 acres, and dense smoke forced the closure of Interstate 76 for about an hour in the afternoon.On the following day, the fire burn scar could be seen in a comparison of Suomi NPP VIIRS true-color and false-color images from the SSEC RealEarth site (below).
Due to the darker color and the lack of vegetation, the grass fire burn scar also exhibited a much warmer signature on the Terra MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) product (below) — LST values were as high as 112º F (darker orange color enhancement) within the burn scar, compared to LST values in the 80s and 90s F in surounding areas.