'Devastating': California's Biggest Wildfire Of The Year Seen From Space - MSNBC

[WillyT]

'Devastating': California's biggest wildfire of the year seen from space
Alan Boyle, Science Editor NBC News
8/26/13


NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg transmitted this image of smoke wafting from California's Rim Fire, as seen from the International Space Station, via Twitter on Monday. North is to the left in this image.

The 150,000-acre fire blazing in and around Yosemite National Park made a big impression on NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, who was watching the smoke from the International Space Station on Monday.

"Our orbit took us directly over California's Rim Fire about an hour ago. Devastating," Nyberg wrote in a Twitter update.

Nyberg isn't the only one keeping track of the blaze from outer space: The MODIS imaging spectrometers that NASA has aboard its Aqua and Terra satellites are keeping watch on the Rim Fire as well as other wildfires across the West.


A map from the National Interagency Fire Center helps you get a fix on the extent of the Rim Fire, in relation to California's Mono Lake as well as Yosemite National Park's famous Half Dome.


An image from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra Satellite, acquired on Aug. 25, shows the active burning areas of the Yosemite Rim Fire in red outlines.

Link: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/devastating-californias-biggest-wildfire-year-seen-space-8C11008420

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. amazing. been to that area. it's beautiful

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. It was.

[NCarolinawoman]

2. People and creatures in Nevada being relentlessly hit by that same plume of smoke

day after day in the same area.

What a horrible thing, this fire.

I always wonder how things like this start. Was it lightening or something else?
Did Jerry Brown, etc. act quickly enough, or was the starting place just too remote?

The east coast needs to send this area some of it's rain. Wish we could.

[IDemo]

4. And Idaho..

Today the smoke was the worst it's been this season, worse here than when it was from the huge fires burning in our state.

[NCarolinawoman]

5. I am so sorry or what you are going through.

For some years I have been following the journal and ( then twitter account) of a woman who moved to the Nevada High Sierras from Los Angeles. She and her family and several animals moved to that area for the cleaner air--lots of asthma in the family. Now they are under that very thickest plume of smoke. They cannot even view the home across the road from them.

This has all been going on for days and days. Brownish Orange stuff with fine particles and today larger chunks of stuff.

Please be well.