Forest Fires In Canada
05 May 2016
On 05 May 2016, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired this false-color image of the wildfire that burned through Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. The image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (OLI bands 7-5-3). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke to reveal the hot spots associated with active fires, which appear red. Smoke appears white and burned areas appear brown. According to news reports, the burned area grew significantly overnight.
Source: NASA EarthObservatory
A destructive wildfire burned through Canadas Northern Alberta region, razing neighborhoods in Fort McMurray and displacing tens of thousands of residents. At 12:34 p.m. local time on 03 May 2016, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired this false-color image of the fire. The image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (OLI bands 7-5-3). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke to reveal the hot spots associated with active fires, which appear red. Smoke appears white and burned areas appear brown. When this image was acquired, the fire was burning southwest of downtown Fort McMurray. Across the day, a growing number of neighborhoods were placed under mandatory evacuation orders. By the evening of 03 May, the mandatory evacuation covered all of Fort McMurraythe largest evacuation on record in Canada.
Source: NASA EarthObservatory
On 04 May 2016, the the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) on the Landsat 7 satellite acquired this false-color image of the wildfire that burned through Fort McMurray in Alberta. The image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (bands 5-4-2). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke to reveal the hot spots associated with active fires, which appear red. Smoke appears white and burned areas appear brown.
Source: NASA EarthObservatory
Other news from the media: Note: The hyperlinks on the left side of each news are password-protected (User ID and password to enter the GFMC database are available for partners of GFMC). The links on the right side (in brackets) are leading to the original news source; sometimes these news are expiring rather swiftly – a reason for the establishment of the internal GFMC database):
- Canada: Massive wildfire forces evacuation of Canadian city (published by www.cbsnews.com 03 May 2016)
- Canada: Alberta volunteer firefighter, 19, charged with 18 counts of arson (published by www.ctvnews.ca 01 May 2016)
