NASA MODIS Image of the Day: June 26, 2011 – Smoke from southeastern US fires over the Atlantic Ocean
Despite rain clouds, fires along the U.
S.
eastern seaboard continue to send smoke over to the Atlantic Ocean. Active fire areas appear as red dots and represent high surface area temperatures. Clouds are bright white, and the smoke from the fires appears a lighter grayish-white. Near the lower section of the image, sunglint, a bright strip that is caused by the mirror-like reflection of the Sun off the water. This Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of fires in North Carolina and Southern Florida on June 23, 2011 at 18:05 UTC (2:05 p.m. EDT). North Carolina’s second largest wildfire, the Juniper Road fire, is causing most of the smoke in this image. Located near the coastal region in Pender County, North Carolina this fire now exceeds 19,000 acres, according to InciWeb, the “Incident Information System” website that reports wildfire conditions throughout the country. The Pains Bay and Simmons Road fire in North Carolina can also be seen in this image. At the tip of the Florida peninsula the Oil Pad Complex fires burn and are almost completely contained. Rain both alleviated the fires in southeast Georgia and created new ones from lightning strikes on June 23. The Honey Prairie Fire and the Satilla Summer Fires (not shown in this image) in the Okefenokee Swamp area are still active. The U.S. Forest Service Incident Information System predicts that the Satilla Summer Fire will be fully contained on June 25.
