Here’s a NASA Satellite View of One of New Jersey’s Biggest Wildfires in Decades

Images taken by a NASA outer this week uncover the worrying grade of a fast-moving wildfire successful confederate New Jersey.

Taken during the fire’s 2nd day, the images seizure plumes of fume and scorched terrain from the occurrence that’s burned 15,300 acres to date.

New Jersey’s Pine Barrens are nary alien to fire—pitch pines really request occasional burns to thrive. But erstwhile drought meets dense development, a earthy rhythm tin crook dangerously destructive. This week, erstwhile a wildfire ignited successful a wildlife absorption country adjacent Waretown, New Jersey, and rapidly grew into 1 of the state’s largest fires successful decades.

NASA’s Landsat 9 captured the blaze—dubbed the Jones Road Fire—on April 23 utilizing its OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2). In natural-color views (below, astatine left), heavy fume billows from the fires southwards, with the coastline disposable to the east. But much insights are gleaned from the satellite’s false-color imagery—a combo of shortwave infrared, near-infrared, and disposable airy that lets scientists separate betwixt scorched onshore (brown), vegetation (green), and quality infrastructure. The false-color images (below, astatine right), uncover conscionable however overmuch of New Jersey has burned underneath the heavy smoke.

The occurrence forced wide evacuations successful Ocean and Lacey townships, and concisely unopen down the Garden State Parkway, some sandwiched betwixt the fires and the water. Smoke besides drifted toward New York City, showcasing however a localized occupation tin swiftly go a determination issue. As of 10 a.m. Eastern Time today, the occurrence is 60% contained.

The fire’s ferocity didn’t travel retired of nowhere. Earlier this month, NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE-FO satellites had already flagged “anomalously dry” conditions successful the area, according to an Earth Observatory release. The U.S. Drought Monitor echoed that warning, classifying the region’s conditions arsenic “severe” conscionable earlier the occurrence erupted.

This blaze is simply a crisp reminder that the Pine Barrens’ ecology is delicate; adjacent though the situation needs occasional wildfires, quality improvement means that the earthy blazes tin rapidly go superior threats. Droughts tin further exacerbate the issue. As wildfires turn more intense and less predictable, watching them from abstraction whitethorn beryllium the lone mode to spot the afloat picture.