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Wildfire in Saskatchewan produces a pyrocumulonimbus cloud

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-19 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, top), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, center) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm, bottom) images [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

10-minute Full Disk scan GOES-19 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm) images (above) showed that a wildfire in central Saskatchewan produced a pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud on 08 May 2025 (this was the first documented pyroCb of the 2025 North America wildfire season). The pyroCb exhibited cloud-top 10.3 µm infrared brightness temperatures (IRBTs) in the -40s C (denoted by shades of blue to cyan), a necessary condition to be classified as a pyroCb.

The coldest pyroCb cloud-top 10.3 µm IRBT was -47.7ºC — which was slightly colder than the air temperature of the Maximum Parcel Level (MPL) analyzed from rawinsonde data at The Pas, Manitoba (below).

Plot of rawinsonde data from The Pas, Manitoba at 0000 UTC on 09 May [click to enlarge]

GOES-19 Visible + Fire Mask and Infrared images (below) showed that the pyroCb developed as a cold front was passing through a small cluster of wildfires; surface air temperatures at nearby METAR sites were as warm as 86ºF, with wind gusts as high as 37 kts (43 mph).

GOES-19 Visible (0.64 µm) + Fire Mask derived product (top) and Infrared Window (10.3 µm, bottom) images, from 2000 UTC on 08 May to 0000 UTC on 09 May [click to play MP4 animation]

A plot of surface observation data from Nipawin (station identifier CYBU) showed that after the cold frontal passage, smoke from the nearby pyroCb-producing wildfire reduced the surface visibility to 2-3miles at times (below).

Plot of surface observation data at Nipawin, Saskatchewan [click to enlarge]

Categories: Air quality, Fire detection, GOES-19