East of the Raft River in southern Idaho, the Black Pine 2 Fire had scorched more than 50,000 acres of grassland, brush, and juniper as of July 11, 2007, according to the morning report from the National Interagency Fire Center. This image of the fire was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on July 10.
The area in which MODIS detected actively burning fire is outlined in red. Smoke spreads east and mingles with clouds. The burned area appears a deep brown against the tan color of the grasslands and the dull green of forests on mountain slopes. Green circles that line the Raft River and tributaries are fields watered with a center-pivot irrigation system. At the top of the image is Lake Walcott, which is on the Snake River.
The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily images of the western United States in additional resolutions and formats, including an infrared-enhanced version that makes burned areas appear brick red.
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NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center
