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30-second imagery of a chemical plant fire in Texas

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 Day Land Cloud Fire RGB images with an overlay of Fire Power and Fire Mask derived products, from 1400 UTC to 1900 UTC [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Overlapping 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sectors provided 30-second interval GOES-16 (GOES-East) Day Land Cloud Fire RGB images (above) that included an overlay of Fire Power and Fire Mask derived products (2 components of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA) — which showed the thermal signature and dark black smoke plume associated with a fire at the Sound Resource Solutions chemical plant in Shepherd, Texas on 08 November 2023. The smoke plume was thick enough to significantly reduce incoming solar radiation reaching the surface, which inhibited the subsequent development of boundary layer cumulus clouds (resulting in a pronounced gap in the cumulus field downwind of the fire and smoke plume source after about 1700 UTC).

GOES-16 Day Land Cloud Fire RGB image at 1426 UTC, with a cursor sample of Fire Mask and Fire Power derived product values [click to enlarge]

The FDCA first identified a Processed Fire at 1420 UTC — and the peak Fire Power value of 171.65 MW occurred 6 minutes later (above). The maximum Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) brightness temperature of 55.54ºC also occurred at 1426 UTC (below).

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) image at 1426 UTC, with a cursor sample of the 3.9 µm infrared brightness temperature [click to enlarge]

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