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Brantley Highway 82 wildfire in southeast Georgia

By Scott Bachmeier •

1-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images, from 1259-2049 UTC on 21 April [click to play MP4 animation]

1-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images, from 1259-2049 UTC on 21 April [click to play MP4 animation]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (above) highlighted notable smoke plumes from two large wildfires in southeast Georgia (the Pineland Road Fire near the Florida border, and the Brantley Highway 82 Fire farther to the northeast), in addition to another wildfire in northern Florida on 21 April 2026. Those particular wildfires were burning in parts of Georgia and Florida that were experiencing Exceptional Drought conditions.

1-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Fire Detection polygons (below) provided a close-up view of the smoke plume and thermal signature associated with the Brantley Highway 82 wildfire in southeast Georgia — which was nearly under control at 700 acres in size during the early morning hours on 21 April, but then quickly grew out of control as surface winds abruptly shifted to the northeast then to the east (occasionally gusting to 22-23 mph), with the fast-moving wildfire burning an area of 5000 acres by the end of the day. Numerous evacuation orders were issued, about 87 homes were destroyed and schools throughout Brantley County were closed due to air quality concerns.

1-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of NGFS Fire Detection polygons and plots of Surface Observations, from 1259-2201 UTC on 21 April [click to play MP4 animation]

1-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of NGFS Fire Detection polygons and plots of Surface Observations, from 1259-2201 UTC on 21 April [click to play MP4 animation]

At 1758 UTC, the wildfire first exhibited a 3.9 µm shortwave infrared brightness temperature of 138ºC (below) — which is the saturation temperature of GOES-19 ABI Band 7 detectors. Also of note, at that time the Fire Radiative Power of the thermal signature was a rather high 6594 MW.

GOES-19 GeoColor RGB image at 1758 UTC on 21 April, with a probe of the hottest NGFS Fire Detection polygon [click to enlarge]

Periodic bursts of brighter-white pyrocumulus clouds rose above the hazy gray smoke plume, such as was seen just west of the fire’s thermal anomaly at 2019 UTC (below).

GOES-19 GeoColor RGB image with an overlay of NGFS Fire Detection polygons at 2019 UTC on 21 April [click to enlarge]

GOES-19 GeoColor RGB image with an overlay of NGFS Fire Detection polygons at 2019 UTC on 21 April [click to enlarge]

Categories: Air quality, Fire detection, GOES-19, NGFS, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images