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Bay Area Wildfires Visible From Space

With 560 active wildfires burning across the state, satellite images show the sobering sight of California now
By - posted 8/21/2020 No Comment

Unfortunately, California is experiencing many major wildfires right now, many caused by the dry lightning storm over the weekend amidst the scorching hot weather. There are currently 560 active fires burning across California right now.

Thanks to SFGate for sharing that state’s massive wildfires are visible from space. National Weather Service Sacramento shared imagery from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) that was sent back down to Earth on Wednesday morning, August 19 that showing the massive fires and the smoke plumes all over the state.

If you’d like to see for yourself, you can browse and download the imagery. NASA‘s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview application provides the capability to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and then download the underlying data. Many of the available imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks “right now.” Actively burning fires, detected by thermal bands, are shown as red points.