Lightning ignited the Gold Pan Complex Fire on July 16, 2013, in the River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho. As of August 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 August 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 August 8 shows thick smoke trapped in the mountain valleys by a temperature inversion.
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
