Multisensor Fire Observations

  • Credit

    NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Multisensor Fire Observations

From space, we can understand fires in ways that are impossible from the ground. New Earth-observing satellites capture the significant impact of fires on our planet. In this animation of fires around the globe in 2002, each red dot marks a new fire. Dots change color to yellow after a few days and to black when fires burn out. From brush fires in Africa to forest fires in North America, satellites are locating every significant fire on Earth to within one kilometer. In the summer and fall burning seasons, particularly destructive fires occurred in Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon.

A view of the region around Denver, Colorado, on June 9, 2002, during the Hayman fire. Both the reddish image and the 3D smoke plume are measurements from the MISR instrument on Terra. The Hayman fire is located at the leftmost end of the smoke plume, represented in red from MODIS fire incidence data. The regions in purple are regions of large population density, and Denver is right underneath the right end of the plume.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Terra/MODIS, TRMM/TMI, TOMS/TOMS, Terra/MISR, Terra/ASTER, Space Shuttle/SRTM, QuikSCAT/SeaWinds

  • Animation ID

    2707

  • Video ID

    SVS2003-0009

  • Start Timecode

    01:00:35:00

  • End Timecode

    01:06:00:00

  • Animator

    Cindy Starr, Horace Mitchell, Randall Jones, Alex Kekesi, Marte Newcombe, Lori Perkins, Greg Shirah, Eric Sokolowsky, James W. Williams

  • Studio

    SVS

  • Writer

    Jarrett Cohen

  • Narrator

    Michael Starobin (HTSI)

  • Visualization Date

    2003/03/07

  • Scientist

    Chris Justice (University of Maryland), Robert Sohlberg (University of Maryland), William C. North (NASA/GSFC), Fred J. Gunther (CSC)

  • Datasets

    USGS/GTOPO30, Aerosol Index, Fire Location, Landcover, Population, Wind, Topography

  • Keywords

    Fire, Biscuit, Hayman, Rodeo

  • DLESE Subject

    Natural hazards, Atmospheric science, Forestry

  • Data Date

    2001/10/01 - 2002/09/30

  • Story URL

    http://nasadaacs.eos.nasa.gov/scienceoffire.html

  • Animation Type

    Regular

  • Other Credits

    the ESDIS Science Operations Office and the MODIS Rapid Response Team (http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov)