September 15, 2021
In the midst of another ruthless fire season, numerous of Californias natural treasures have also been threatened.
In the midst of another brutal fire season that has threatened numerous lives, homes, and companies, numerous of Californias natural treasures have also been threatened. Still burning after nearly nine weeks, the Caldor fire has encroached on Lake Tahoe. Now a few of the worlds oldest and largest trees are being threatened by fires at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada variety.
On September 15, 2021, the Operational Land Imager ( OLI) on Landsat 8 acquired images of the KNP fire complex, the Windy fire, and the thick smoke plumes both have actually launched. The image listed below includes infrared information with the thermal signature of some fire fronts underneath the plumes. NASAs Terra satellite acquired broad-area images of the exact same area from September 10-16.
The National Park Service composed in an upgrade: “In the case of the Paradise Fire, incredibly steep topography and an overall lack of gain access to has actually avoided any ground team operations, and in the case of the Colony Fire, only a minimal quantity of ground crew access has been possible. Due south of the KNP complex, the Windy fire is burning in Sierra National Forest. According to CalFire, 1.97 million acres (almost 3,100 square miles) have actually burned in California so far this year, and the fire season still has a number of months to go. The total is about half of the 2020 fire season– the worst on record– and roughly equal to the total burned in all of 2018.
According to InciWeb and other sources, the KNP complex was fired up by a substantial lightning storm on September 9– 10. By the morning of September 16, the KNP complex had actually burned 8,940 acres (36 square kilometers).
The KNP complex has led to the closure of Sequoia National Park and the evacuation of parts of the neighboring community of Three Rivers. Fire officials told The Los Angeles Times on September 15 that the blazes were about a mile from the “Giant Forest,” the largest concentration of huge sequoias in the park and home to the 275-foot General Sherman tree. Close-by Kings Canyon National Park stays open, but air quality is bad.
September 15, 2021.
The KNP fires are raging in extremely high, harmful surface, so most of the firefighting has been done by aircraft so far. The National Park Service wrote in an update: “In the case of the Paradise Fire, very high topography and a total absence of gain access to has prevented any landing crew operations, and in the case of the Colony Fire, only a limited quantity of ground team access has actually been possible. Both fires are making use of substantial aerial resources carrying out water and retardant drops.”.
Due south of the KNP complex, the Windy fire is burning in Sierra National Forest. It started in the Tule River Reservation during the September 9– 10 lightning storm. About 2,800 acres have burned so far in an area not far from Giant Sequoia National Monument.
According to CalFire, 1.97 million acres (almost 3,100 square miles) have actually burned in California so far this year, and the fire season still has a number of months to go. The overall is about half of the 2020 fire season– the worst on record– and approximately equal to the overall burned in all of 2018. Near the end of the last serious drought in the state ( 2012-16), fire totals were 30 to 40 percent of the 2021 count.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, utilizing Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
