image: The human-caused North Star Fire in Washington State which began on August 13 was dampened over the Labor Day weekend by snowfall, but not extinguished. The fire, which is currently at 211,356 acres, is only 45% contained, however, the snowfall was able to prompt officials to put on hold a plan to burn 22,000 acres of grazing allotments in between the North Star Fire and the Tunk Block fire in order to stop the two fires from merging. Even after a week of cold, wet weather the fire is still burning. The North Star Fire is primarily on the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and evacuations are in effect for approximately 3,000 residences. Thirteen hundred seventeen state and federal firefighters are working to contain the fire. NASA's Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on September 10, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. view more
Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from Inciweb