“California Burnin’ on Such a Summers Day”
(Courtesy NASA/MODIS/TERRA – July 26, 2008)
Jeff Braun
Currently, California has 26 fire incidents…mostly across the northern half of the state. Fourteen of these fires are considered large at the moment (= or > 100 acres…see following map).
To date (this fire season – through July 30, 2008), over 750,000 acres of California have burned. Most of the current fires started as a result of lightning strikes between June 20th and June 28th…with a couple of them going back to the last week in May! Several thousand firefighters from across the country have been deployed to the region over the last couple of months, with additional fire specialists from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also helping out. Many Incident Meteorologists are also working these fires this summer. Check out this recent visible image loop that shows the region between the evening of July 29th and through the morning of the 30th. For more information on these fires as well as others across the country, please go to these sites: http://gacc.nifc.gov/oncc/, http://www.nifc.gov/, and http://www.inciweb.org/ .