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Bald Mountain Fire in western Virginia

By Scott Bachmeier •

1-minute GOES-19 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product, from 1230-2100 UTC on 12 November [click to play MP4 animation]

The Bald Mountain brush fire had been burning for several days in far western Virginia — but flared up on 12 November 2025, due to continued dry conditions and an increase in winds. 1-minute GOES-19 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product (above) showed an initial fire detection at 1251 UTC — and a smoke plume became more apparent as wind gusts at nearby METAR sites reached 30-37 kts during the afternoon hours.

However, 1-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images (below) depicted the smoke plume with greater clarity during the daytime hours — and NGFS Fire Detection polygons portrayed a thermal signature of the Bald Mountain Fire several hours earlier than the Fire Mask derived product.

1-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of NGFS Fire Detection polygons, from 1000-2359 UTC on 12 November [click to play MP4 animation]

Categories: Fire detection, GOES-19, NGFS, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images