Sometimes, it seems like the whole world is on fire. Siberia. The western United States (which has been burning for some time). And now, the Canary Islands. The Spanish islands have been under a drought, as has much of Spain. (As an indication of how dry it has been, one fire in mainland Spain was started by someone flicking a cigarette butt out of their car window in a traffic jam – a fire that ultimately led to two deaths.) Back in July, fires got started on Tenerife – a major resort destination – and earlier this month, fires began on La Palma and La Gomera. At least two firefighters have already died battling these fires.
For your reference, here is a VIIRS “true color” image (M-3 [0.488 µm], M-4 [0.555 µm], M-5 [0.672 µm]) of the Canary Islands, with the major islands labelled:
VIIRS true color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5, taken 14:01 UTC 5 August 2012
If you look closely at this image, from 5 August 2012, you can see smoke plumes coming off of La Palma and La Gomera. You can also see what looks like a von Kármán vortex street downwind of La Palma. That’s the west coast of Africa in the lower-right corner of the image.
As discussed previously, the true color RGB composite is better for viewing the smoke plume, but you can’t actually see the fire directly. So, here’s the M-5 (0.672 µm), M-7 (1.61 µm) and M-11 (2.25 µm) composite from the same time:
VIIRS RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-11, taken 14:01 UTC 5 August 2012
It’s easy to see where the fires are actively burning with this composite. Let’s zoom in to make it even more obvious:
VIIRS false color RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-11, taken 14:01 UTC 5 August 2012
All the bright red pixels indicate where the fire is actively burning. You can also see the burn scar on Tenerife (not as easily as in Siberia) where the M-5, M-7, M-11 RGB composite shows the fire was back in July:
VIIRS false color RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-11, taken 14:38 UTC 18 July 2012
La Gomera has been the hardest hit island, where thousands of people had to be evacuated, and approximately 10% of Garajonay National Park has burned. Garajonay National Park is home to one of the last remaining laurisilva forests, which has been around for 11 million years. That lush vegetation burned hot, and channel I-04 (3.7 µm) reached saturation as that area went up in flames:
VIIRS channel I-04 image of fires in the Canary Islands, taken 14:01 UTC 5 August 2012
The two white pixels on La Gomera are where I-04 reached saturation and “fold-over” due to the heat from the fire. M-13 (4.0 µm), which is a dual-gain band designed to not saturate, reached a brightness temperature of 451 K over La Gomera, compared with a saturation brightness temperature of 367 K for channel I-04.
The fires also showed up in the Day/Night Band that night:
VIIRS Day/Night Band image of the Canary Islands, taken 02:25 UTC 6 August 2012
The red arrows point out the fires on La Palma and La Gomera. The fire on La Gomera covers a significant percentage of the island. The yellow arrow points to Lanzarote, which, for some reason, is not part of IDL’s map. On the night this image was taken, the moon was approximately 84% full, so you can see a number of clouds as well the city lights from the major resort areas of the Canary Islands. The biggest visible city in Africa is El Aaiún, the disputed capital of Western Sahara.
Finally, here’s the “pseudo-true color” composite of VIIRS channels I-01 (0.64 µm), I-02 (0.87 µm) and I-03 (1.61 µm) from 13:42 UTC 6 August 2012. This is a full granule at the native resolution of the Imagery bands with no re-mapping, showing the rich detail of VIIRS high-resolution imagery, including more interesting cloud vortices:
VIIRS false color RGB composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 13:42 UTC 6 August 2012
Make sure to click on the image, then on the “6400×1536” link to see it in its full glory.