June 26, 2023 - Canadian Wildfires

Wildfires
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Wildfires continued to blaze across Central Canada in late June 2023,
pouring rivers of smoke high into the atmosphere. The Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra
satellite acquired a true-color image of the fiery scene on June 22.

Each red “hot spot” marks an area where the thermal bands on the MODIS
instrument detected high temperatures. When combined with smoke, as in
this image, such hot spots mark actively burning fire. All of the fires
in this image, except for the one farthest to the west, are burning in
the province of Quebec. The western one is located in Ontario, near the
border with Quebec. Given the location and quantity of dark smoke, most
appear to be burning in boreal forests and/or in areas with peat-laden
soils. Peat, which can be found in moist boreal ecozones, is
exceptionally smoky when burned and is also difficult to fully
extinguish.

Wildfires have plagued both Western and Central Canada this spring,
with an exceptionally early start to fire season in British Columbia
and Alberta. By early June, a wildfire outbreak struck the province of
Quebec. Wildfires in both locations have continued through the month of
June. On June 23, the Society for the Protection of Forests Against
Fire (SOPFEU) reported that 81 fires were burning in the Intensive
Protective Zone (the area in which all fires are normally fought to
extinguish), with 31 more in the Northern Zone. Twenty-five of the
total fires were considered out of control. Active fires covered
1,054,171 hectares (ha) in the IPZ and 999,152 ha in the Northern Zone.

A large and dedicated crew of firefighters from Canada have been
supplemented with crews from several countries, and they have made
headway on many of the wildfires. The weather, however, has made fire
control very difficult. On June 25, the Quebec provincial government
warned that, “Due to low precipitation and rising temperatures,
flammability indices vary from very high to extreme in several regions
of Québec. These weather conditions could reinvigorate existing
wildfires and lead to the outbreak of new fires.”

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 6/22/2023
Resolutions: 1km (3.1 MB), 500m ( B), 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-06-26

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