Brush fire on Kauai
Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Alerts (from this website) for the 24 hours including most of 19 July 2024, above, include an alert for a fire on the island of Kauai. Satellite imagery (note the blue button in the alert above) for the time of the alert, below, includes RGB imagery with a box highlighting the detected pixel.
The animation below shows the NGFS Microphysics RGB from 0501 to 0556 UTC (0556 UTC was when NGFS detected the fire, and the detected warm pixels associated with the detected fire are highlighted (in a color related to the computed Fire Radiative Power (FRP)). The box that appears at the end of the animation is a mouse-over feature of the NGFS website that shows information about the fire.
The animation below is of the shortwave infrared imagery (GOES-18 Band 7, 3.9 µm) covering the same time as the NGFS Microphysics above.
A slow animation from the CSPP Geosphere site, below, includes a development (in the Night Microphysics RGB) of signal in the region of the detected fire.
The fire could be viewed from the Federal Aviation Administration webcam at the airfield at Loleau (SOK). The image below shows the camera views at that site. In particular, the northwest view shows the fire, in this case at 2008 UTC on 19 July 2024 (link to webcam).
An animation of the webcam views that show how the fire evolved during the earlier part of the day on 19 July 2024 is below. Note that the smoke plume initially moves inland, but as it ascends higher into the atmosphere, it switches direction and moves out to sea. The 1200 UTC 19 July 2024 Lihue Sounding (from this site; Lihue is on the windward side of Kauai. This fire near Waimea is on the leeward side) shows the tradewinds that are moving the smoke plume offshore. Later in the animation, the amount of smoke increases presumably as winds increase. Clouds are also increasing.
The True-color imagery from GOES-18, above, shows only a very faint smoke plume at the start of the animation. Clouds form over the fire location, and then increase in general as the amount of smoke visible from the satellite increases. The animation belows shows webcam views paired with the closest-in-time GOES-18 image between 1801 and 1901 UTC.
NOAA-20 overflew the fire shortly after 1200 UTC on 19 July. The image below compares Day Night Band imagery on 18 and 19 July.
I am grateful to Chris Brenchley, WFO Honolulu, for alerting me to the presence of this fire!