In the Idaho wilderness, scattered fires continued to burn in early September 2005. This image of the area was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on September 6. Actively burning areas detected by MODIS are outlined in red. Smoke has settled into the Selway River valley.
In the remote, rugged wildlands of the state, many fires are allowed to burn as part of the natural resource management strategy, which now recognizes the important natural role that fire plays in the ecosystems of Western forests. The Forest Service considers these fires “Wildland Fire Use” incidents. The fires pictured here between the Selway and Salmon Rivers in central Idaho are being treated as Wildland Fire Use incidents.
The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at
References & Resources
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center
