The 2021 northern California wild fire season is still active. It is difficult to see smoke using the VIIRS SNPP day night band (0.7 micron) at night, but there are visible bright spots of the Caldor Fire near Lake Tahoe. The VIIRS I04 (3.74 micron) band shows bright spots of... Read More

GOES-17 (GOES-West) True Color RGB images created using Geo2Grid (above) showed the diurnal variation of smoke from the Dixie Fire, Beckwourth Complex, Caldor Fire and Tamarack Fire in Northern California on 25 August 2021. Early in the day, smoke from the previous day of fire activity that had settled into valleys was evident — but as daytime... Read More

GOES-16 (GOES-East) Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above) showed rapid growth of the thermal anomaly — cluster of hot pixels, red enhancement — associated with the Greenwood Fire in northeast Minnesota on 23 August 2021. With gusty winds in the wake of a frontal passage, the fire exhibited extreme behavior on this day, growing... Read More

The Caldor Fire (east of Sacramento, California) exhibited unprecedented growth on 17 August 2021 — increasing from 3600 acres burned in the morning to 30,000 acres that evening, with 0% containment — and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images from 1-minute GOES-17, 15 to 30-minute GOES-15, 15 to 30-minute GOES-14 and 5-minute GOES-16 (above)... Read More