Status Report

NASA MODIS Image of the Day: January 12, 2007 – Fires in Victoria, Australia

By SpaceRef Editor
January 12, 2007
Filed under , , ,
NASA MODIS Image of the Day: January 12, 2007 – Fires in Victoria, Australia
image01122007_md.jpg

Images

Fires continue to burn in Victoria, Australia. Hundreds of thousands of hectares (1 hectare is about 2.5 acres) have been burned in Victoria since late 2006. Extremely dry, windy, and hot conditions in the region since spring have kept the fire danger extreme across much of the region for weeks at a time.

Today’s image is false-color – if you move your mouse over the image, you’ll see the same image in true-color. Both images were acquired on January 10, 2007, by the MODIS on the Terra satellite. The false-color image is useful for looking at the burn scars from the fire. They show up a deep red in color. The smoke from the fires shows up as pale blue, which helps makes them distinguishable from clouds. The smoke extends even out over the ocean! The fires themselves are marked with red dots.

The smoke plumes were even more pronounced on the next day, January 11, 2007 – you can read about that here.

SpaceRef staff editor.