NOAA Satellite Images Show Terrifying View of The Park Fire Wildfire

Climate change and changes in land use are making wildfires more frequent and intense in most regions of the world. However, a new trend in the implementation of satellite data and AI technology can help to detect and study wildfires and their consequences.

This time, the NOAA satellite monitors the second-largest wildfire of 2024 in northern California.

Massive Fire Disasters Are Again In The News Headlines

On 26 and 27 July, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spacecraft captured striking images showing dense puffs of smoke rising from the blaze and drifting northeast across the western United States. The Park Fire is believed to have started when a burning car was pushed into a gully at a municipal park in Chico, California. The individual responsible has been arrested, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

This year’s largest wildfire in California has already consumed more than 560 square miles (1,455 square kilometres), more than the area of a city like Los Angeles. As of 29 July, the fire was only 12 per cent contained. 

The devastating Park Fire wildfire is sweeping across California and has spawned at least one fire tornado, also known as a fire whirlwind.

Another massive wildfire is burning near Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, forcing thousands of people to evacuate.

More than 100 wildfires have now burned in the United States.

Nor only the Park Fire: The Most Major Wildfires of Recent Decades

In 2009, wildfires in the Australian state of Victoria engulfed more than one million acres of land and killed 173 people. Because of the tragic consequences, the event went down in history as Black Saturday.

In 2017, an even more enormous wildfire in the forests of British Columbia sparked five firestorms almost simultaneously. Smoke from the fires rose as high as 14 miles into the stratosphere and remained in the atmosphere for nearly nine months.

In July 2018, the Carr Fire in California produced a fire tornado that spun at up to 143 miles per hour and caused four local deaths.

Australia has had as many fire-related storms in 2019 as in the previous 20 years.

On 7 September 2020, smoke from a pyrocloud near Fresno, California, shot 10 miles into the stratosphere, a record for a fire in North America that caused significant carbon emissions.

What Are The Dangers Of Large-Scale Wildfires?

High-intensity wildfires can cause extreme flame and smoke emissions that develop into chimney fire clouds, reaching the upper troposphere or lower stratosphere.

When a forest fire occurs, an intense heat source generates hot air that rises upwards by convection, and gases and smoke particles mix. Energy is released by condensation of water vapour, forming cumulus clouds from the smoke plume. In some cases, these clouds can develop into thunderstorms where ice particles can contribute to lightning, increasing the risk of more and larger fires.

For example, following the wildfires in Australia in 2020, such emissions and their long-range transport have altered the Antarctic ozone and vortex, significantly impacting air quality and climate change.

These large vertical clouds, called Pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb), remain attached to the fire that spawned them. They pull the fire-emitted smoke upward through the storm’s fire-induced core, often at or above the cruising altitudes of jet aircraft. PyroCb also produces lightning with a positive rather than negative charge, prolonging the storm’s duration. It rarely produces rain to help put out a forest fire.

A pyrocumulonimbus cloud is a type of cumulonimbus cloud that forms above a source of heat, such as a wildfire or volcanic eruption.

Scientists’ forecasts don’t look optimistic — that wildfires will become more widespread and destructive. In 2021, NOAA released a study showing that man-made changes to Earth’s climate will increase the number and frequency of wildfires in the western United States. Another NASA study showed that the smoke from these wildfires is heating the planet more than previously thought, releasing dense carbon particles into the atmosphere.

Space Fire Patrol

Since 2012, pyroCb has been detected and accounted for methodically using near real-time interpretation of satellite imagery.

Earlier, we wrote about some global wildfire monitoring companies that helped spot and solve the problem quickly.

NASA was the first organisation to undertake an in-depth study of PyroCbs. The Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATOM) ran from July 2016 to the end of May 2018.

Because wildfires are unpredictable, predicting which will develop into pyroCb is complex, further complicating fire suppression planning. Near real-time tools are needed to provide early warning capabilities for pyroCb and protect the lives of firefighters and the public from unexpected fire outbreaks, sudden wind shear, and thick smoke.

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed a prototype pyroCb prediction tool funded by the NOAA JPSS Proving Ground Risk Reduction (PGRR) Fire & Smoke and Sounding initiatives to address this issue. The goal is to predict weather conditions that could lead to pyroCbs hours in advance. 

Satellites For Wildfire Combating

Governmental agencies and private companies search for the most effective solutions. The majority of investments are spent on wildfire response research to develop practical tools for early detection, real-time monitoring, and prediction of the effects of these devastating events.

Satellite instruments are often the first to detect wildfires in remote regions, and locations of new fires are sent directly to landowners worldwide within hours of the satellite flyby. Together, its instruments detect actively burning fires, track smoke transport from fires, provide information for fire management, and map the extent of ecosystem changes based on the extent and severity of burns.

The presence of such “guardians” in orbit offers hope that humanity can still manage the consequences of its impact on Earth’s climate in the future.