image: Canada, like everywhere else, is experiencing a very heavy fire season due to hot, dry conditions. In the South Slave Regionof the Northern Territories (south of the Great Slave Lake) there have been 85 fires to date, according to Northern Territories Environment and Natural Resources website. Twenty-one fires are out, one is under control, 61 are being monitored for values protection, one is receiving limited action to protect values and one fire is currently being fought.
Fire SS-066 (the fire being fought) is approximately 13 kilometres (~8 miles) southeast of Fort Providence at 113 hectares (279 acres). This fire is under control and being fought with crews today. There is no threat to any properties at this time. The Northern Territories Environment and Natural Resources website is forecasting high to extreme fire weather for all regions this weekend excluding the Inuvik Region.
NASA's Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on August 10, 2017. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. Each red hot spot is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than background. When accompanied by plumes of smoke, as in this image, such hot spots are diagnostic for fire. Note that although the fires are in the Northern Territories, the smoke is affecting both Alberta and Saskatchewan and will most probably drift eastward affecting Eastern Canada and the northern portion of the U.S.
Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner