The Piute Fire, burning south of Lake Isabella in the Sequoia National Forest in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, was one of the more than 300 wildfires burning across the state of California in early July 2008. The fire started June 28 just north of Twin Oaks, California, and had burned nearly 34,000 acres as of July 10, according to reports from the National Interagency Fire Center. They estimated the fire might not be brought under control for another 2 weeks.
Astronaut photograph ISS017-E-10310 was acquired July 4, 2008, at 18:04 UTC, with a Nikon D2Xs digital camera using an 180 mm lens as part of the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment. The image was taken by the Expedition 17 crew, and is provided by the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Cynthia Evans, NASA-JSC.
