NASA shares space views of Camp Fire raging across California
Heat and smoke from a furious wildfire in Northern California can be seen from orbit.
Continuing a brutal year for California fires, the Camp Fire near Chico is growing at a rabid pace. NASA is tracking the devastation from above.
NASA and the US Geological Survey's Landsat 8 satellite got a look at the fire on Thursday that shows hot spots and a massive smoke plume trailing across the landscape. The bright spots near the top show where the fire is active as seen by the satellite's infrared view. The rest of the image is in natural color.
The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science Center shared a different version of the Landsat 8 image to Twitter on Friday.
Strong winds rapidly pushed the #CampFire in California from 10 to 10,000 acres on Thursday. The city of #ParadiseCa was all but decimated. #Landsat 8 captured this image of the ongoing devastation. pic.twitter.com/3ZHtqyVGrI
— Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (@USGS_EROS) November 9, 2018
The Camp Fire 90 miles north of Sacramento has sparked evacuations and already torn through the town of Paradise, leaving much of it in ruins. A California fire tracker estimates that it's burned 70,000 acres with very little containment as of Friday. Strong winds are complicating the battle to bring it under control.
NASA released an annotated view of the fire on Friday showing the locations of towns impacted by the fire and its smoke. Active fire locations are highlighted with red.
NASA's Suomi NPP satellite captured this look at the Camp Fire on Nov. 8.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration generated an animation of the Camp Fire and plume using data from its Goes-East weather-monitoring satellite.
Hot spots and a large plume of smoke from the #CampFire in Northern California are even visible from space! To make this #GOESEast animation, fire temperature imagery was made partially transparent and placed over the geocolor image. More: https://t.co/LCFx9nf87l pic.twitter.com/ml7yZsRm6B
— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) November 9, 2018
The cause of the Camp Fire, which is being fueled by dry conditions, is not yet known.
