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Prescribed burning in the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma

By Scott Bachmeier •

5-minute GOES-19 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product, plus hourly plots of Ceiling and Visibility (cyan), from 1406 UTC on 06 April to 0001 UTC on 07 April; Interstate highways are plotted in violet [click to play MP4 animation]

5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) images (above) included an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product (a component of the GOES Fire Detection and Characterization Algorithm FDCA), which depicted the areal coverage and diurnal behavior of thermal signatures associated with widespread prescribed burning in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas and northern Oklahoma on 06 April 2026.

A plot of surface report data from Emporia, Kansas (below) showed that smoke reduced the surface visibility to 3 miles during the late afternoon hours (at 2300 UTC), and 2.5 miles a few hours after sunset (at 0300 UTC).

Plot of surface report data from Emporia, Kansas (KEMP), from 1400 UTC on 06 April to 0500 UTC on 07 April [click to enlarge]

5-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below) offered a clearer view of the smoke plumes across eastern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. There was also a dense smoke plume originating from another area of prescribed burn activity in the vicinity of the Missouri/Arkansas border.

5-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images, from 1401 UTC on 06 April to 0001 UTC on 07 April [click to play MP4 animation]

5-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Fire Detection polygons (below) provided a more integrated depiction of the fire thermal signatures and smoke plumes.

5-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images with an overlay of NGFS Fire Detection polygons — with/without map labels — from 1401 UTC on 06 April to 0001 UTC on 07 April [click to play MP4 animation]

===== 07 April Update =====

5-minute GOES-19 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product, plus hourly plots of Ceiling and Visibility (cyan), from 1346 UTC on 07 April to 0001 UTC on 08 April; Interstate highways are plotted in violet [click to play MP4 animation]

Flint Hills prescribed burning continued on 07 April, as seen in GOES-19 Visible images with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product (above).

A Pilot Report 12 miles SW of Emporia, Kansas at 2055 UTC (below) mentioned that the flight visibility at an altitude of 6000 ft was 4 statute miles due to smoke (the 2100 UTC surface visibility at Emporia KEMP was 7 statute miles — indicating that the bulk of the smoke was aloft).

GOES-19 Visible image with an overlay of the Fire Mask derived product, plus plots of Ceiling and Visibility (cyan), at 2056 UTC on 07 April — with a cursor sample of a 2055 UTC Pilot Report (green) [click to enlarge]

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