Gold Pan Fire Complex (IMAGE)
Caption
Lightning ignited the Gold Pan Complex Fire on July 16, 2013, in the River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho. As of Aug. 9, the fire had burned 17,103 acres of mixed conifer forest. Many of the burned trees may have already been dead as a result of insects. The fire has a high potential for growth.
The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite acquired this false color image of the fire on Aug. 8, 2013. Newly burned land is dark red. Hot spots glow orange. Paler red areas may be old burn scars or forest infested with insects, such as the mountain pine beetle.
The infrared, false-color image cuts through smoke. A ground photo from Aug. 8 shows thick smoke trapped in the mountain valleys by a temperature inversion.
Credit
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Holli Riebeek
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