Images & Animations
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Credit
Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
Unusually hot and dry for this time of year, Alaska is experiencing several large, intense wildfires as a result. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) from May 26, 2002, shows heavy smoke choking the air for several hundred miles around Fairbanks. Though hidden by smoke in this image, Fairbanks is located just to the south of (and centered roughly between) the two large clusters of fires (red dots) at upper right.
The westernmost fire of that pair is being called the MP 78 Elliott Highway Fire, which grew from 35,000 acres on May 28 to more than 80,000 on May 29. The fire is currently burning in vegetation that normally acts a natural barrier to fire spread, and is being fuled by strong winds. Though many structures have been threatened, only one has yet been destroyed. To the east, fire fighters are battling the flames of the West Fork Chena Fire. Numerous structures are threatened in this tourist area, and the fire has spread to over 14, 000 acres.
To the southwest, the Vinasale Fire (southernmost fire) was already 20,000 acres on May 28, and had more than doubled in size, to over 49,000 acres by May 29. So far this year, Alaska has experienced 236 wildfires, which have burned more than 315,000 acres.
Metadata
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Sensor
Terra/MODIS -
Visualization Date
2002-05-28
