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Magnum Fire in northern Arizona

By Scott Bachmeier •

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

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) showed the smoke plume and thermal anomaly (cluster of hot pixels) associated with the Magnum Fire in northern Arizona on 12 June 2020. The hottest Shortwave Infrared brightness temperatures observed were 138.7ºC (411.9 K), which is the saturation temperature for those ABI detectors. Near and immediately downwind of the fire source region, brighter-white pyrocumulus clouds were seen penetrating the top of the darker gray smoke plume. About 50-60 miles north of the fire, the smoke plume drifted over Bryce Canyon, Utah (KBYC) — but the surface visibility there remained at 10 miles, indicating that the smoke remained aloft (and automated hourly reports listed an overcast layer at 9-12 kft from 03-05 UTC).

At 2112 UTC, the Suomi NPP VIIRS Fire Radiative Power product as viewed using RealEarth (below) revealed a maximum FRP value of 142.3 MW, and a band I4 (3.74 µm) infrared brightness temperature of 367 K.

Suomi NPP VIIRS Fire Radiative Power product [click to enlarge]

Suomi NPP VIIRS Fire Radiative Power product [click to enlarge]

On the following day (13 June), a veil of broken to overcast cirrus moved over the Magnum Fire for much of the day — but in 1-minute GOES-17 3.9 µm imagery, the fire’thermal anomaly was only completely masked for very brief periods when the clouds were at their maximum thickness (below).

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

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

Another view of the fire using 5-minute imagery from GOES-16 (GOES-East) provided quantitative products such as Fire Power, Fire Temperature and Fire Area (below) — these 3 products are components of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm (FDCA). These FDCA products are still being tested and evaluated using GOES-17 data before being released.

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm), Fire Power, Fire Temperature and Fire Area [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm), Fire Power, Fire Temperature and Fire Area [click to play animation | MP4]

Categories: Fire detection, GOES-16, GOES-17, RealEarth, Suomi NPP