The second largest fire in Arizona history, the Wallow Fire is graphically depicted by this Landsat image, taken June 7, which shows burning in the mountains of eastern Arizona near the border with New Mexico.
A Landsat image of the burning mountains in Arizona
Credit: NASA/USGS
Starting on May 29, winds and hot, dry conditions helped the fire grow quickly, burning approximately 389,000 acres when the Landsat 7 image was acquired. The dense plume of smoke pouring north from the massive fire affected air quality as far north as Wyoming and as far east as Georgia.
The U.S. Geological Survey and NASA cooperate closely in managing the Landsat program. USGS conducts Landsat operations; NASA develops and launches new satellites that meet USGS requirements.
Starting on May 29, winds and hot, dry conditions helped the fire grow quickly, burning approximately 389,000 acres when the Landsat 7 image was acquired. The dense plume of smoke pouring north from the massive fire affected air quality as far north as Wyoming and as far east as Georgia.
The U.S. Geological Survey and NASA cooperate closely in managing the Landsat program. USGS conducts Landsat operations; NASA develops and launches new satellites that meet USGS requirements.
This animation from NASA’s Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on the Terra spacecraft show the Wallow and Horseshoe 2 Fires burning in Arizona mid-morning (local time) on June 7, 2011. This animation shows sequential views from MISR’s nine cameras, which observe the scene over a period of seven minutes from different view angles. Smoke can be seen rising from local hot spots due to the time lapse between the different images. The images at the beginning and end of the sequence are from MISR’s more oblique cameras and observe a longer path through the atmosphere, making the smoke appear thicker and easier to resolve against the bright desert background. The areas with no data (shown in black and present at the oblique angles) are locations where the variable terrain has obscured lower elevation ground.
Credit: NASA JPL
In addition to imagery of natural hazard events, Landsat provides valuable data for land use research and advances the Department of the Interior’s important role in land remote sensing under the President’s National Space Policy. Landsat images are unique in that they provide complete global coverage, they are available for free, and they span nearly 40 years of continuous earth observation. No other satellite imagery has that combination of attributes.
The blaze from Wallow North, one of Arizona’s most potent fires, grows at an alarmingly fast rate. Likewise an end to the Horseshoe Two fires seems nowhere in sight. U.S. Forest Service officials rank the Wallow North fire, which has left 600 square miles of pine forest blackened, as Arizona’s second-largest forest fire on record, according to Reuters.
Both fires are continuing to produce thick clouds of smoke, as seen in this image. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite identified the fires (in red) on June 8 at 20:25 UTC (4:25 p.m. EDT/2:25 p.m. MDT).
Fire officials said they are bringing in a Boeing 747 supertankers to assist with the fires and spread fire retardant chemicals, reported the KPHO news service on June 8.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Melissa Quijada
For more information about Landsat satellites, please visit:
http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
or http://landsat.usgs.gov/
For more images and information, visit NASA's Fire/Smoke Page:
www.nasa.gov/fires
http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
or http://landsat.usgs.gov/
For more images and information, visit NASA's Fire/Smoke Page:
www.nasa.gov/fires
Contacts and sources:
Jan Nelson/Rob Gutro
U.S. Geological Survey/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
U.S. Geological Survey/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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