GOES-16: wildfires in southern California

By Scott Bachmeier • 8 July 2017

GOES-16 Visible (0.64 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images, with hourly surface plots [click to play MP4 animation]

As southern California experienced a record-setting heatwave, 2 large wildfires were burning in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties on 08 July 2017: the Alamo Fire and the Whittier Fire. GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) showed the smoke plumes and hot spots (red pixels) associated with these 2 fires.

The dense smoke plumes also exhibited a signature on the Near-Infrared “Cirrus” (1.37 µm) images (below), even though they were not composed of ice crystals (note that 10.3 µm Infrared Window brightness temperatures of the smoke plumes were warmer than -20º C, cyan color enhancement, the entire day). This example demonstrates that in a dry atmosphere, the “Cirrus” imagery will also be able to detect the presence of any airborne particles that are efficient scatterers of light (which includes smoke, dust and volcanic ash).

GOES-16 Visible (0.64 µm, left), Near-Infrared Cirrus (1.37 µm, center) and Infrared Window (10.3 µm, right) images, with station identifiers plotted in yellow [click to play MP4 animation]

Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.74 µm) images [click to enlarge]

Categories: Fire detection, GOES-16, Suomi NPP, VIIRS