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Wildfire in the Northwest Territories produces a large pyrocumulonimbus cloud

By Scott Bachmeier •

10-minute GOES-18 “Red” Visible (0.64 µm, top), Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, center) and “Clean” Infrared Window (10.3 µm, bottom) images, from 2100 UTC on 28 June to 0520 UTC on 29 June [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

A cluster of wildfires was burning on both sides of the Northwest Territories / British Columbia border on 28 June 2025 — and 10-minute Full Disk scan GOES-18 (GOES-West) imagery (above) showed that the largest Northwest Territories wildfire produced a sizeable pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud, beginning at 2230 UTC. As it drifted northward, the cold canopy of the pyroCb expanded along its west-to-east axis — exhibiting cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures in the -50s C (shades of red).

About 1.5 hours prior to pyroCb development, a NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color RGB image visualized using RealEarth (below) revealed the smoke plumes emanating from these wildfires. Significant values of Fire Radiative Power (larger, darker-red circles) were associated with the largest pyroCb-producing wildfire in the Northwest Territories.

NOAA-20 VIIRS True Color RGB image at 2056 UTC on 28 June, with an overlay of Fire Radiative Power for active fires [click to to enlarge]

Categories: Fire detection, GOES-18, NOAA-20, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, VIIRS