Fires in Northern California

Fires in Northern California

When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over northern California on September 26, 2006, it detected active fire locations at the Bar Complex Fire (red outlines), but the smoke from the Uncles Complex Fire appeared to be hiding any “hotspots” in that fire from the sensor’s view. The two fires burned throughout September 2006. According to the September 28 report from the National Interagency Fire Center, the Bar Complex Fire was 88,896 acres and 33 percent contained, while the Uncles Complex Fire was 25,285 acres and 50 percent contained.

The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily images of the area in a variety of resolutions and formats.

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.