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SQF Complex fires in California

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 dense smoke plume and thermal anomalies (clusters of yellow to red to black pixels) associated with the SQF Complex of wildfires that had been burning since 24 August. Also evident in the Visible imagery was the presence of brighter white pyrocumulus clouds that persisted for several hours over the source region of one of the hotter fires — in fact, this fire complex included the Castle Fire which produced a pyrocumulonimbus cloud on 23 August.

As the smoke drifted northward across the San Joaquin Valley, surface visibility at some locations such as Fresno (KFAT) was reduced to 5 miles.

Categories: Air quality, Fire detection, GOES-17