In the mountains of the West, fires typically continue to spring up until the winter rains and snows put an end to the season. This Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from the Terra satellite on September 29, 2003, shows several fires (marked with red) burning in California. At the upper left, a spot of smoke indicates the location of the Canoe/Honeydew Complex Fire, which is burning partly in old growth redwood forest. Right of the image center, fires are burning the central Sierra Nevada Mountains, near Yosemite National Park. A few fires burning in California’s large central valley are probably related to agriculture.
The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters.
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Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
