Wildfire causes interesting smoke plume over Nuytsland Nature Reserve

In the Nuytsland Nature Reserve, shifting winds pushed smoke from a wildfire on the south coast of Western Australia into the shape of the letter Z.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image of the zigzagging smoke plume on the afternoon of December 7, 2016.

Red outlines indicate hot spots where the sensor detected unusually warm surface temperatures associated with fires.

On December 7, 2016, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired the second image, which shows smoke and pyrocumulus clouds rising from the fire.

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Credit: NASA

Nuytsland Nature Reserve