The October fires in Northern California were some of the most destructive in the state's history. The burned area on the right side of the image is the ATLAS fire, that burned east of Napa; the fire consumed 51,000 acres and destroyed almost 500 structures. The burned area on the left is part of the Nuns fire that burned between Sonoma and Napa; it consumed 110,000 acres, and destroyed almost 7,000 structures. The images were acquired September 7, 2016 and October 28, 2017, cover an area of 34.5 by 39 kilometers, and are located near 38.3 degrees north, 122.3 degrees east. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22019

As firefighters continue to work toward full containment of the rash of wildfires burning in Northern California, a new image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite shows the growing fire scar on the landscape. In this ASTER image, acquired Oct. 21, 2017, vegetation is red, while burned areas appear dark gray. The image covers an area of 38 by 39 miles (60.5 by 63 kilometers) and is located near 38.5 degrees north, 122.4 degrees west. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22049

This satellite image shows smoke from several fires in Oregon and California on Aug. 2, 2015. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of smoke from these fires Aug. 2 at 21:05 UTC (5:05 p.m. EDT). The multiple red pixels are heat signatures detected by MODIS. The smoke appears to be a light brown color. InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident information management system that coordinates with federal, state and local agencies to manage wildfires. In Oregon smoke from the Cable Crossing Fire, the Stouts Fire and the Potter Mountain Complex Fire commingle. The Cable Crossing Fire was reported burning on forestlands protected by the Douglas Forest Protective Association (DFPA) at approximately 3:25 p.m. on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, near Oregon Highway 138 East, near Mile Post 23, east of Glide. South of the Cable Crossing Fire is the Stouts Fire also in forestlands of the DFPA. This fire was reported on Thursday, July 30, 2015, burning approximately 11 miles east of Canyonville near the community of Milo. East of the other fires is the Potter Mountain Complex Fire. These fires are located in the Deschutes Forest consists of eight fires. According to Inciweb they were started by dry lightning on Saturday, Aug. 2, at approximately 5:30 p.m. about five miles north of Toketee Lake. In northern California, smoke from the River Complex Fire, the Fork Complex Fire and the Shf July Lightning Fire was visible in the MODIS image. The River Complex currently consists of seven reported and observed fires on the Six Rivers and Shasta Trinity National Forests. Originally identified as 18 fires, some have burned together. Inciweb noted that in the Six Rivers National Forest there are fires in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. Those fires include the Groves Fire and the Elk Fire. In the Shasta-Trinity National Forest the fires include the Happy Fire at 2,256 acres, Daily Fire at 16 acres, the Look Fire at 7 acres, Onion Fire at 136 acres and Smokey Fire at 1 acre. In the same forest, south of the River Complex is the Fork Complex fire. Inciweb reported that the Fork Complex consists of (at current count) over 40 fires, all of which were ignited by lightning between July 29 and 31, 2015. To the southwest of this complex is the Mad River Complex. This is a series of seven lightning fires that started on July 30, 2015 after a lightning storm moved through Northern California. To the east of this and the other fires, burns another near Redding, California, called the Shf July Lightning Fire. This is also under the Shasta-Trinity National Forest management. At 8 p.m. PDT on Aug. 2, Inciweb reported that approximately 15 lightning strikes occurred within 24 hours throughout the Shasta Trinity National Forest and resulted in two new fires. The Caves fire, east of Mt. Shasta, is approximately one-tenth of an acre. The Bluejay fire, east of Shasta Lake, is approximately four acres. Image credit: NASA Goddard's MODIS Rapid Response Team, Jeff Schmaltz <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>

NASA's ECOSTRESS captured data over Northern California's Dixie Fire, which had ballooned to over 220,000 acres as of July 29, 2021. In the data visualization, the red areas show the hottest pixels – and fire movement – from July 15 to July 24. The most heavily affected areas are south of Lake Almanor in Plumas County. Tasked with detecting plant water use and stress from the vantage point of the International Space Station, ECOSTRESS's primary mission is to measure the temperature of plants heating up as they run out of water. But it can also measure and track heat-related phenomena like wildfires, heat waves, and volcanoes. ECOSTRESS observations have a spatial resolution of about 77 by 77 yards (70 by 70 meters), which enables researchers to study surface-temperature conditions down to the size of a football field. Due to the space station's unique orbit, the mission can acquire images of the same regions at different times of the day, as opposed to crossing over each area at the same time of day like satellites in other orbits do. This is advantageous when monitoring plant stress in the same area throughout the day, for example. Movie available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23696

The major fires burning in Northern California's wine country continue to burn relentlessly, forcing additional mass evacuations. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite acquired this image the morning of Oct. 12, 2017. The fires have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres, resulting in significant loss of life, injuries and heavy property losses. The city of Santa Rosa is in the upper left corner; Napa is in the upper right; and Sonoma is in the center. In the image, vegetation is depicted in red and smoke is blue-gray. Active fires and hotspots, detected on ASTER's thermal infrared channels, are in yellow. The background colors have been subdued to make the yellow hotspots more apparent. The image covers an area of 35 by 57 miles (57 by 91 kilometers) and is located near 38.3 degrees north, 122.5 degrees west. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22046

California has been hit hard the past few weeks with storms. Storms bring lightning and lightning strikes cause wildfires. Currently there are at least five fire complexes in the area including River, Fork, South, Route and Mad River. The Mad River complex is a series of seven lightning fires that started on July 30th, 2015 after a lightning storm moved through Northern California. After initial firefighters responded, 25 fires were reported and most of the fires were contained. Some additional fires might be detected from the original lightning storms in the upcoming days and will be attacked once they are found. Damage assessment is ongoing and crews will determine the extent of structures and equipment damaged or destroyed. The River Complex is managing a total of 5 fires due to fires merging together on the Shasta-Trinity and the Six Rivers National Forests. Winds from the west are expected to lift the inversion today resulting in active fire behavior. The Fork Complex consists of over 40 fires, all of which were ignited by lightning between July 29 and 31, 2015. These fires are still being identified, assessed, and prioritized. Updated acreage and information about specific fires will be published as it is known. Fire activity moderated throughout last night (8/4) with the smoke inversion layer remaining in place today. Hopefully this will create favorable conditions for fire crews to take direct fire attack on the fires edge, construct dozer line and scout for best firefighting locations on all fires in the complex. The South Complex consists of approximately nine known fires, five of which are currently over 100 acres. The fires are active and defense of structures and point protection are in progress. The weather is trapping smoke in the valley causing very poor air quality. As the smoke lifts the fire activity increases. Firefighters will continue to provide point protection on structures and to look for opportunities to build direct and indirect containment lines. The Route Complex currently stands at 12,164 acres from seven separate fires and is at 2% containment. The overall acreage has been reduced because the South Fire on the nearby South Complex is merging with the Johnson Fire in the Route Complex resulting in decreased and revised fire perimeter acreage. This natural-color satellite image collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite shows smoke rising and drifting northwest from the various fire complexes. It was captured on August 04, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>

Lightning strikes have sparked more than a thousand fires in northern California. Cape Mendocino is at the center of the image and Mt. Shasta is near the upper right.

The Soberanes fire, in northern California near Big Sur, had grown to more than 27,000 acres when the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft captured this image on July 28, 2016. More than 3,000 personnel are battling the blaze, that is only 10 percent contained. The fire has destroyed 36 homes and caused one fatality. Evacuation orders were issued for a number of nearby communities. The image covers an area of 29 by 30 miles (46 by 48 kilometers), and is located at 36.4 degrees north, 121.8 degrees west. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20722

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, created this Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas of Northern California that are likely damaged (shown by red and yellow pixels) as a result of the Camp Fire. The map is derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The pre-event images were taken before (November 4, 2018) and the post-event image was acquired during the fire (6pm November 16, 2018, both local time). https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22819

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, created these Damage Proxy Maps (DPMs) depicting areas in California likely damaged by the Woolsey and Camp Fires. They are derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The pre-event images for the Woolsey Fire in Southern California were taken before the fire on Oct. 30, 2018 and the post-event image was acquired during the fire on Nov. 11, 2018. The map covers an area of 50 miles x 25 miles (80 km x 40 km), indicated with the big red polygon. Each pixel measures about 33 yards x 33 yards (30 m x 30 m). The color variation from yellow to red indicates increasingly more significant ground surface change. The pre-event images for the Camp Fire in Northern California were taken on Nov. 4, 2018 and the post-event images were acquired during the fire on Nov. 10, 2018. The map covers an area of 55 miles x 48 miles (88 km x 77 km). As in the previous image, each pixel measures about 33 yards x 33 yards (30 m x 30 m). The color variation from yellow to red indicates increasingly more significant ground surface change. Preliminary validation for both maps was done by comparing approximate location data to Google's Crisismap. These damage proxy maps can be used as guidance to identify damaged areas with the understanding that they may be less reliable over vegetated areas including farmlands. For example, the scattered single colored pixels over vegetated areas may be false positives, and the lack of colored pixels over vegetated areas does not necessarily mean no damage. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22816

The Rices Fire started on June 28th, 2022 in Northern California near the Yuba River in Nevada County. The fire has burned over 900 acres and has destroyed one structure. French Corral, Birchville, and other communities were evacuated, but orders have since been lifted. There have been some firefighter injuries reported, but not casualties. The fire was captured in an ECOSTRESS Land Surface image on June 29 at 09:09 AM PDT and shows the temperatures surpassing 130 degrees Fahrenheit. ECOSTRESS is a thermal instrument on the International Space Station that measures the temperature of the ground, which is hotter than the air temperature during the day. It was launched to the space station in 2018. Its primary mission is to identify critical thresholds of water use and water stress in plants and to detect the timing, location, and predictive factors leading to plant water uptake decline and/or cessation. The nature of the high-resolution data provided by ECOSTRESS allows it to record heat related phenomena such as heat waves and wildfires. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25485

The Sherpa fire in Santa Barbara County, CA has burned over 12 square miles since it started on June 15. Smoke from the fire reached Los Angeles on the weekend. The fire caused closures of US Highway 101, one of the main routes between southern and northern California. The image was acquired June 19, 2016, covers an area of 25 by 30 kilometers, and is located at 34.4 degrees north, 119.8 degrees west. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20734

Thousands of acres damaged by the ongoing Kincade Fire in Northern California's Sonoma County are visible in this new image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite. The image was taken at 11:01 a.m. PST (2:01 p.m. EST) on Nov. 3, 2019. The burned area appears dark gray in ASTER's visible channels. Hotspots, where the fire is still smoldering, appear as yellow dots in ASTER's heat-sensing, thermal infrared channels. After starting on Oct. 23, forcing residents to evacuate, the fire had burned 77,758 acres and destroyed 372 structures by Nov. 3, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It is now over 80% contained. The town of Healdsburg is in the center of the image, which covers an area of about 24 by 25 miles (39 by 40 kilometers). https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23426

Very hot, dry and unstable conditions in California and across the Pacific Northwest add to the challenges facing firefighters as they battle blazes around the region. Cal Fire is urging Californians to be extremely cautious, especially for the next few days, as the current conditions increase the dangers authorities face. This image was taken by NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite's VIIRS instrument around 2145 UTC (5:45 p.m. EDT) on August 17, 2015. Northern California is seeing smoke from the River Complex, Route Complex, South Complex, Fork Complex and Mad River Complex fires combine over a large area of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest west of Redding, California, while the Rough Fire in Fresno County is spreading toward the Black Rock Reservoir, causing evacuations and road closures. Fires across the Pacific Northwest aren't limited to California. Please see the Suomi NPP VIIRS composites in NOAA View to see the growth and extent of fires over the past weeks. Credit: NASA/NOAA via <b><a href="www.nnvl.noaa.gov/" rel="nofollow"> NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory</a></b>

ISS013-E-81687 (17 Sept. 2006) --- A forest fire in southern California is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 13 crewmember on the International Space Station. The day fire started in Los Padres National Forest north of Los Angeles on Sept. 4, 2006. Easterly winds on Sept. 17 blew the smoke west out to sea, and this wind shift was observed by station crewmembers. The forested mountains north of Los Angeles appear dark green, the smoke a dusky gray. Dense farmland at the south end of California's central valley is framed by the forested Sierra Nevada mountain range. White patches near the center of the view are dry lakes of the Mojave Desert, one of which acts as a landing site for the space shuttle. The dark irregular shape at image right is part of the space station. Death Valley and Las Vegas are visible at image right. The extent of the day fire smoke plume can be gauged from the gray urban region of greater Los Angeles (center) which stretches along 50 miles of coastline. The plume obscures the northern Channel Islands, but the southern Channel Islands are silhouetted against the ocean.

SL3-34-336 (July-September 1973) --- A vertical view of a portion of northern California near the Pacific coast as photographed from Earth orbit by one of the six lenses of the Itek-furnished S190-A Multispectral Photographic Facility Experiment in the Multiple Docking Adapter of the Skylab space station. A cloud deck covers the Pacific Ocean. Most of Cape Mendocino is clear of clouds and extends into the Pacific as the westernmost part of California. The sinuous pattern of the Bel River (in center) flows northward into the ocean and is characteristic of the rivers that drain the coastal ranges. This area is immediately southeast of Eureka. During Skylab 3 extensive forest fires occurred near Briceland and the smoke rising from the fires is clearly visible next to the cloud bank. Redwood and fir forests are sources of lumber in this region; and a variety of clear cut (timbering) patterns appear as light against the dark forest. The patterns appear to be related to the topography. Analysis of this photograph will aid Dr. P.G. Langley, Earth Satellite Corporation, in developing methods for forest inventory using space photography. Federal agencies participating with NASA on the EREP project are the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers. All EREP photography is available to the public through the Department of Interior?s Earth Resources Observations Systems Data Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 57198. Photo credit: NASA

ISS016-E-005526 (21 Oct. 2007) --- Dust plumes, Baja California, Mexico are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 16 crewmember on the International Space Station. A major dust plume and several minor plumes were raised during the strong, dry Santa Ana winds of October 2007. The light brown dust was transported west out to the Pacific Ocean (top right). According to meteorologists, Santa Ana winds, because they are warm, dry and strong, reduce soil moisture and generate frequent dust storms such as this. On this occasion, the Santa Anas supported the outbreak of fires in southern California resulting in significant damage to homes in hilly, wooded country. Dust plumes are known to start from relatively small, dust-prone areas. Here the plumes rise from the Real del Castillo agricultural valley--25 miles long, and part of Mexico's wine-producing region--surrounded by rocky hills in northern Baja California. Specifically, the dust is rising from spreads of loose sediment known as alluvial fans. Small streams from the local hills carry sediment with every rainstorm and deposit it at the foot of small canyons on the east side of the valley. It is notable that the vegetated farmland itself--the small rectangular pattern on the valley floor--protects the soil from the wind and is not producing dust plumes.

ISS037-E-022990 (30 Oct. 2013) --- This detailed image, photographed by an Expedition 37 crew member on the International Space Station, features the former US Borax mine located to the northwest of Boron, California. The mine, currently owned by the Rio Tinto Group, is the largest open-pit mine in California (covering approximately 54 square kilometers) and is among the largest borate mines in the world. Borates, chemical compounds that include the element boron (B), are important both as providers of an essential plant micronutrient, for metallurgical applications, and as components of specialized types of glass, anticorrosive coatings, fire retardants, and detergents (among other uses). Borate minerals such as borax, kernite, and ulexite are found in deposits at the Rio Tinto borax mine. The geologic setting is a structural, nonmarine basin ? a permanent shallow lake ? fed by thermal springs rich in sodium and boron that existed approximately 16 million years ago, according to scientists. The first mining claim in the area was filed in 1913, following discovery of boron-bearing nodules during well drilling. Much of the mine workings were underground until 1957, when US Borax changed to open-pit mining. The open pit is clearly visible at center; concentric benches along the pit wall are accentuated by shadows and mark successive levels of material extraction. Mine tailings are visible as stacked terraces along the northern boundary of the mine. Ore processing facilities occupy a relatively small percentage of the mine area, and are located directly to the west of the open pit. The Rio Tinto mine is one of the Earth?s richest borate deposits; together with mines in Argentina, they produce almost 40 percent of the world?s supply of industrial borate minerals.

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Caltech, also in Pasadena, created this Damage Proxy Map depicting areas in Northern California that are likely damaged (shown by red and yellow pixels) as a result of the region's current outbreak of wildfires. The map is derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The images were taken before (Sep. 27, 2017, 7 p.m. PDT) and after (Oct. 9, 2017, 7 p.m. PDT) the onset of the fires. The map has been provided to various agencies to aid in the wildfire response. The map covers the area within the large red polygon, and measures 155 by 106 miles (250 by 170 kilometers). The illustrative figure from the map depicted in the inset shows damage in the city of Santa Rosa. Each pixel in the Damage Proxy Map measures about 98 feet (30 meters) across. The color variation from yellow to red indicates increasingly more significant ground surface change. Preliminary validation was done by comparing to optical satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe. This Damage Proxy Map should be used as guidance to identify damaged areas, and may be less reliable over vegetated areas. Sentinel-1 data were accessed through the Copernicus Open Access Hub. The image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA and analyzed by the NASA-JPL/Caltech ARIA team. This research was carried out at JPL under a contract with NASA. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22048

On August 18, 2021, at 12:10 p.m. local time, the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) instrument captured imagery of the McCash, Antelope, River Complex, Monument, and Dixie fires as it passed overhead aboard NASA's Terra satellite. Combined, the fires had burned over 1 million acres as of August 24, 2021. MISR has nine cameras that view Earth at different angles. The right side of the image shows smoke from the five fires as observed by MISR's nadir (downward-pointing) camera. The multi-angular information from MISR's images is used to calculate the height of the smoke plumes. The results of those calculations are shown on the left side of the image. Smoke from areas in red reached an altitude of at least 9,842 feet (3,000 meters). The highest plume top near the active fires reached approximately 19,685 feet (6,000 meters). In general, higher-altitude plumes like this one transport smoke greater distances from the source, impacting communities downwind. In recent weeks, smoke from fires in the Western U.S. and Canada has impacted much of the East Coast. This data was acquired during Terra orbit 115254. The smoke plume height calculation was performed using the publicly available MISR INteractive eXplorer (MINX)software tool. The MISR Plume Height Project maintains a database of global smoke plume heights. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23698