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Palisades Fire in southern California

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-17 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-17 (GOES-West) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) displayed the explosive growth of the  Palisades Fire thermal signature late in the day on 15 May 2021. The maximum 3.9 µm brightness temperature sensed was 138.7ºC — which is the saturation temperature for those ABI detectors. The fire prompted evacuation orders in the Topanga, California area.

A time-matched comparison of Shortwave Infrared images from Suomi NPP VIIRS (3.74 µm) and GOES-17 ABI (3.9 µm) at 0918 UTC or 2:18 am PDT is shown below (overpass times of the Suomi NPP satellite). Although a decrease in the fire’s intensity occurred during the subsequent overnight hours, the Shortwave Infrared brightness temperatures sensed by Suomi NPP and GOES-17 at that time were 59.9ºC and 28.1ºC, respectively.

Shortwave Infrared images from Suomi NPP VIIRS (3.74 µm) and GOES-17 ABI (3.9 µm) at 0918 UTC [click to enlarge]

Shortwave Infrared images from Suomi NPP VIIRS (3.74 µm) and GOES-17 ABI (3.9 µm) at 0918 UTC [click to enlarge]

1-minute GOES-17 True Color RGB images created using Geo2Grid (below) revealed a series of “pyrocumulus jump” events (beginning around 01 UTC), when smoke/cloud material was ejected to higher altitudes than the primary smoke plume.

GOES-17 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 True Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

Categories: Fire detection, GOES-17, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Suomi NPP, VIIRS