Many fires are still raging across California
Many fires are still raging across California. Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory shows smoke streaming over Mendocino County from the August Complex, one of 20 major fires that are still burning across California.
In August 2020, thousands of lightning strikes sparked hundreds of wildfires that have now burned more than 1.5 million acres.
Vince Ambrosia is a senior research scientist at California State University-Monterey Bay, who is working at NASA’s Ames Research Center
“The fire management community utilizes data like this, as well as other thermal-infrared sensor data on satellites and airborne platforms, to quickly identify fire hot spots for indicating where fires are burning,” said Ambrosia. “This allows fire managers to quickly mobilize firefighting resources and personnel, and aids with post-fire burn severity mapping to allow rapid rehabilitation and recovery operations to occur on the most critical ecosystem-affected areas.”
“All these events were lightning-caused and burning in remote Mediterranean-ecosystem shrub and forested regions. The August Complex continues to spread aggressively, while the fire complexes further south have slowed their advancement.” Many fires are still raging across California
The natural color image was captured on September 1, 2020 by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8.
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
