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Swan Lake Fire in Alaska

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-17

GOES-17 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images [click to play animation | MP4]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-17 (GOES-West) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) revealed thick smoke and a pronounced thermal anomaly (hot pixels, darker black) associated with the Swan Lake Fire on the Kenai Peninsula in south-central Alaska on 17 August 2019. Later in the day, a few pyrocumulus jumps could be seen in Visible imagery over the fire source region, as fire behavior increased (another day when pyrocumulus jumps were apparent with this fire was 30 June, during a period when southerly winds were transporting dense smoke to the Anchorage area).

Strong northerly-northwesterly winds were transporting smoke from the Swan Lake Fire southward across the Kenai Peninsula and the Seward area — a time series of surface report data from Seward (below) showed that this smoke had reduced the visibility to less than 1 mile by 03 UTC (7 PM local time). South-central Alaska was experiencing drought conditions, which had worsened from the preceding week; the strong winds on this day acted to dry fuels even further, leading to a re-invigoration of the long-lived fire.

Time series of surface reports from Seward, Alaska [click to enlarge]

Time series of surface report data from Seward, Alaska [click to enlarge]

Seward Airport webcam image at 2358 UTC [click to enlarge]

Seward Airport webcam image at 2358 UTC [click to enlarge]

The PM2.5 Air Quality Index reached 427 at Cooper Landing, and 358 farther downwind at Seward (below).

Air Quality Index at Copper Landing and Seward [click to enlarge]

Air Quality Index at Copper Landing and Seward [click to enlarge]

The southward transport of smoke across the Seward area and out over the adjacent offshore waters of the Gulf of Alaska was evident in VIIRS True Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images from NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP, as viewed using RealEarth (below).

VIIRS True Color RGB images from NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP [click to enlarge]

VIIRS True Color RGB images from NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP [click to enlarge]

Categories: Air quality, Fire detection, GOES-17, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Severe convection