image: Prescribed fires are deliberately set in remote areas by fire officials to try to rid the area of excessive undergrowth before it becomes fuel in a wildfire. Usually early Spring is the time that park and fire managers decide to carry out these tasks, before the very hot weather comes in and before the tourists show up. In this image taken by the Aqua satellite on May 22, 2015, two prescribed fires can be seen. The fire on the left is being burned (and controlled) in the Moquah Barrens State Natural Area and the other (to the right) is in Ottawa National Forest. Both parks are in the state of Wisconsin. One of the fires was listed on Inciweb.org (a website that tracks all fires in the United States). The fire in Ottawa National Forest was not listed, however, in the larger report from National Interagency Fire Center, no wildfires were listed for Wisconsin making it probable that the fire in Ottawa National Forest a prescribed burn.
This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.
Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner