Fifteen miles northeast of Tucson, Arizona, over a thousand firefighters andfire management personnel are working to contain a large wildfire that hasalready scorched nearly 21,000 acres in the mountainous area. The Bullock Firestarted on May 21, 2002, and has been difficult to control due to rugged terrainand extremely dry fuels such as grasses and chaparral.
This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) showsthe fire on May 29, 2002. The majority of the smoke seems to be heading north,away from Tucson (grayish-yellow area just to the southwest of the fire).
Residences and businesses have been evacuated all around Mt. Lemmon, whoseforested slopes are barely visible through the smoke in this image, and theCoronado National Forest has been completely closed to the public. To date, nostructures have been lost, but if the fire continues to spread, hundreds ofhomes and more than a dozen businesses could be destroyed in the Mt. Lemmonarea. Firefighters are trying to quickly create burn out zones, where trees andvegetation are cleared away in the hopes of robbing the fire of fuel. They areworking to complete many of these zones before Friday because the weatheroutlook calls for a wind event, which could cause the fire to spread rapidly.The cause of the fire is still being investigated.
References & Resources
Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
