image: All evacuations that had been put in place with the Kincade fire in northern California have now been lifted. All that's left behind are the scars.The Kincade fire near Geyserville in the wine country of northern California began on Oct. 23, 2019. The cause of the blaze is still unknown. In total 77,758 acres were burned. At this point the fire is considered 100% contained by firefighters. Although 374 structures were destroyed including 174 residential structures, there were no fatalities. CAL fire issued their final update on the fire on Nov. 06, 2019. This image was taken by NASA's Aqua satellite on Nov. 06, 2019 using the corrected reflectance bands 7-2-1 on the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument. This combination is most useful for distinguishing burn scars from naturally low vegetation or bare soil and enhancing floods. Burned areas or fire-affected areas are characterized by deposits of charcoal and ash, removal of vegetation and/or the alteration of vegetation structure. When bare soil becomes exposed, the brightness in Band 1 may increase, but that may be offset by the presence of black carbon residue; the near infrared (Band 2) will become darker, and Band 7 becomes more reflective. When assigned to red in the image, Band 7 will show burn scars as deep or bright red, depending on the type of vegetation burned, the amount of residue, or the completeness of the burn. In this image the edges of the fire are quite stark. The fire's boundaries can be seen as the dark red area on the image. NASA's satellite instruments are often the first to detect wildfires burning in remote regions, and the locations of new fires are sent directly to land managers worldwide within hours of the satellite overpass. Together, NASA instruments detect actively burning fires, track the transport of smoke from fires, provide information for fire management, and map the extent of changes to ecosystems, based on the extent and severity of burn scars. NASA has a fleet of Earth-observing instruments, many of which contribute to our understanding of fire in the Earth system. Satellites in orbit around the poles provide observations of the entire planet several times per day, whereas satellites in a geostationary orbit provide coarse-resolution imagery of fires, smoke and clouds every five to 15 minutes. For more information visit: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/missions/index.html NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview application provides the capability to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and then download the underlying data. Many of the available imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks "right now." view more
Credit: Image Courtesy: NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). Caption: Lynn Jenner with information from CAL fire.