The 2009 wildfire season roared to life in Alaska on 02 July – 03 July 2009, with a number of very large and very intense fires breaking out across interior portions of the state. A ridge of high pressure was in place over the region, allowing Fairbanks to experience a high temperature above... Read More

Wildfire activity was beginning to increase across parts of Quebec, Canada on 24 June 2009 — and AWIPS images of the MODIS 3.7 µm shortwave IR channel (above) revealed a number of large fire “hot spots” (red to yellow color enhancement) that were increasing in areal coverage between 16:29 UTC and 18:14... Read More

Fires in coastal northeastern South Carolina, (news links here and here, for example) near Myrtle Beach, have destroyed 70+ houses and forced residents to evacuate. A true-color MODIS image that shows the distinct smoke plume is available here.The fires were visible from satellite in both the visible channels, as shown above,... Read More

A large outbreak of wildfires occurred across parts of Texas and Oklahoma on 09 April 2009. GOES-13 visible images (above) showed several very large smoke plumes  drifting eastward across far northern Texas and far southern Oklahoma during the afternoon hours.  These fires... Read More