You're looking at the Caldor fire, which broke out just south
of Grizzly Flats, California and burn from August 15 to October 6
2021. With upwards of two dozen Earth-observing satellites,
detecting and tracking fires is an important part of NASA's
purview. But this visualization gives us a detailed look at the
past. NASA's latest generation of fire-tracking satellites
observes the entire planet twice per day. Scientists use the
thermal infrared images from each overpass to identify the
active fire front as well as track the behavior of large
fires.
It's really important for us to be able to track fires as they
change over time, because the rate of spread, the intensity,
and the total area that burns all contribute to the impact
from fires on ecosystems, communities, air quality and
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
The yellow outlines you see represent the active fire lines,
where the brightest shade of yellow shows the location of the
current active fire lines. The gold lines show the position of
the fire lines as they were 1224 and 36 hours earlier. The red
dots indicate active fire detections, and the gray
sections indicate total area burned.
The Caldor fire started in the middle of August and burned for
almost eight weeks. But we know that most of the expansion
happened in just the first two weeks, after which point, most
of the active fire detections were not at the perimeter of the
fire as expanding fire fronts, but actually within the
perimeter, showing areas where there was residual smoldering or
flaming activity.
The latest generation of satellites are a partnership
between NASA and NOAA. These new instruments have higher spatial
resolution that helps them better detect fires. This also
allows scientists to better locate the areas of actively
burning fire and to be more sensitive to areas of smaller
fire activity, including some of the smoldering fire activity
that would not have been detected by previous satellites
from NASA or other agencies. Here we can see the Dixie fire,
located in Northern California. Better geolocation also allow
scientists and fire managers to be more confident about where
the fire is actually located on the ground.
Overall, the goal for our team is to be able to deliver active
fire detection and tracking information in a way that helps
link NASA satellite capabilities with the needs of stakeholders
on the ground. These stakeholders include fire
managers who track and respond to fires in real time, and air
quality managers responsible for forecasting and reporting how
fire emissions create unhealthy air quality for communities
downwind from large fire events. These data also help support new
science. By tracking the fire every 12 hours, we can better
pinpoint the conditions under which dangerous fires could
occur and better anticipate the likely impact on ecosystems from
hotter faster and longer fires in a warming world