Fires along the South Carolina Coast
Fires along the South Carolina Coast
27 April 2009
Wildfires burned along the South Carolina coastline on 22-23 April 2009, leaping over a highway and heading for a heavily populated area in North Myrtle Beach, according to The New York Times. By 23 April, the fires had destroyed more than 40 homes and damaged another 100, and had forced more than 2,500 people to evacuate.
TERRA
23 April 2009
(source: earth observatory)
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASAs Terra satellite captured this true-color image at 12:17 local time (16:17 UTC) on 23 April 2009. The red outlines in this image mark hotspots where MODIS detected unusually warm surface temperatures associated with the fires. The plume of pale gray smoke blows east-southeastward over the ocean. To the northeast of the fires is North Myrtle Beach, which lies just south of the border between North and South Carolina.
Wildfires typically destroy roughly 35 homes in any one year in South Carolina, a local official told the New York Times. Encouraged by low humidity and winds of 40 kilometers (25 miles) per hour, the April 2009 fire burned a record number of homes in just 24 hours. As of the morning of 23 April 2009, the fires were less than 10 percent contained.
