2000 continues to be the worst fire season in the United States indecades. By August 8, 2000, fires in Montana and Idaho had burned morethan 250,000 acres. Resources were stretched so thin that Army andMarine soldiers were recruited to help fight the fires. PresidentClinton visited Payette National Forest to lend moral support tothe firefighters.
Dense smoke from Idaho and western Montana is visible stretching allthe way to North and South Dakota in this image from the Sea-viewingWide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS). The image was taken on August 7,2000. Although the primary mission of SeaWiFS is to measure the biologyof the ocean, it also provides stunning color imagery of the Earth'ssurface.
For more information about fires in the U.S., visit the NationalInteragency Fire Center.
To learn more about using satellites to monitor fires, visit Global Fire Monitoring and New Technology for Monitoring Fires from Spacein the Earth Observatory.
References & Resources
Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
