Wildfires Rival City Lights at Night

 

Wildfires Rival City Lights at Night

For more than a decade, scientists have used data from instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites to map the locations of wildfires. Now researchers have another tool for observing fires around the world. The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite (S-NPP) carries an instrument so sensitive to low light levels that it can detect wildfires in the middle of the night.

 

On August 17, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on Suomi-NPP acquired this image of wildfires blazing in the western United States. The images were created with data from the instrument’s “day-night band,” which sensed the fire in the visible portion of the spectrum.

 

 

This is the Active Fire Map, It Shows Fires that are happening now and past fire since January 1st

 

 

 

 

Current Large Fires in the United States

 

Click Here For Loop of Satellite image of smoke across the United States