Prescribed burns in the Flint Hills of Eastern Kansas
GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images [click to play animated GIF | MP4]
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-16 (GOES-East) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) showed the thermal signatures of numerous prescribed burns across the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas on 26 April 2022. Although the majority of the fires burned only briefly, some exhibited very rapid increases in their 3.9 µm infrared brightness temperature — for example, the hottest fire went from 30oC to 98oC in 20 minutes, and another fire went from 12oC to 89oC in just 5 minutes.
Such prescribed burns occur every Spring in this region — other examples include April 2019 and April 2010 .