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2 structural fires: Beaver Dam, Wisconsin and San Francisco, California

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, left) and

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, left) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, right) images, with hourly surface reports plotted in yellow [click to play animation]

As documented by NWS Milwaukee/Sullivan, the controlled burn of an apartment building occurred during the late morning hours on 15 March 2018. A comparison of GOES-16 (GOES-East) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) displayed subtle “hot spot” signatures (darker red pixels, circled) as well as an occasional hint of a small smoke plume during the early phase of the fire. At the bottom of the images, note the appearance of a few larger and hotter fires (black pixels) in northern Illinois — likely agricultural fires to prepare fields for Spring planting.

2 days later, another structure fire occurred in the San Francisco area during the early evening hours of 17 March 2018:

Hot spot signatures were observed on the 0247 UTC and 0252 UTC (7:47 and 7:52 PM local time) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images, along with subtle lighter gray pixels on the Near-Infrared (2.24 µm) images (below).

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, left) and Near-Infrared (2.24 µm, right) images, with station identifiers plotted in cyan [click to play animation]

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, left) and Near-Infrared (2.24 µm, right) images, with airport identifiers plotted in cyan [click to play animation]

A timely overpass of the NOAA-15 satellite scanned the fire at 02:43:50 UTC (7:43:50 PM local time), showing a well-defined hot spot (darker red enhancement) on the 1-km resolution Shortwave Infrared (3.7 µm) image (below).

NOAA-15 Shortwave Infrared (3.7 µm) image [click to enlarge]

NOAA-15 Shortwave Infrared (3.7 µm) image [click to enlarge]

Categories: AVHRR, Fire detection, GOES-16, POES, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images