NASA Has Space-Eye View Of Wildfires Burning Worldwide
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- So far this year, the U.S. has seen almost 30,000 wildfires. Worldwide, that's a drop in the bucket. Alex DeMetrick reports, NASA has a space-eye view of the burning.
The big fires closest to home, like those currently raging in California, get most of our attention. But...
"Most of the fires don't happen near us. Most of the fires happen in places like South America or Africa or Indonesia," said Dr. Lesley Otts, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Computer modeling of NASA satellite data shows wildfire outbreaks for 2016. Actual imagery from space captures the scale of the burning happening now near Big Sur and Los Angeles, where it's literally hell on the ground.
"This is a fifth year of an ongoing drought. So we have very extreme fire behavior. These are not normal times," fire officials said.
The El Niño winter did bring rain back to the west, just not enough.
"We had such a deficit of rainfall that even though there were some increases, it really didn't get us all the way back to normal," said Otts.
Pollution from fires can span continents. Dust seen in orange and smoke colored green shows air pollution crossing oceans. Satellites also provide images of fires just beginning.
"NASA satellite data provides some of the first indications of new wildfires, and that information then gets sent down to managers on the ground that have to make day-to-day decisions about how to fight those wildfires," said Morton.
Most are far smaller, but there have been 29,000 fires in the U.S. this year already.
NASA satellites also come into play after fires are out, measuring the loss of vegetation in a burn zone.
