Landsat 8 Satellite Sees Rim Fire from Space

Image Feature

Two recent images from the Landsat 8 satellite compare land conditions in the vicinity of Yosemite National Park before and during the Rim Fire. The images, from August 15 before the fire began and from August 31, can be contrasted and downloaded from the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center.

As of September 3, the Rim Fire, currently the fourth-largest wildfire in California history, has burned over 235,841 acres (about 16 times the land area of Manhattan Island) and is 70-percent contained. The Rim Fire started August 17 on lands to the west of Yosemite National Park, but spread quickly into western regions of the park.

Landsat imagery provides critical vegetation and fuels information that is used to model fire behavior and make tactical decisions. After a fire, scientist and land managers use Landsat imagery to determine the severity of the fire’s effect and to monitor the recovery of the land.

Both images are false-colored to allow identification of critical vegetation and fuels information. In the images fire appears bright red, vegetation is green, smoke is blue, clouds are white, and bare ground is tan-colored.

The USGS supports both the Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service wildfire response. Throughout the fire season, USGS regularly uploads images for wildfires from several satellites to the Hazard Data Distribution System. These remotely sensed data are used by wildfire responders to map potential risks to communities and determine immediate post-fire effects. So far in 2013, 2,156 images have been distributed for wildfires.

The USGS helps staff the Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination Group (GeoMAC). The GeoMAC viewer is a mapping application that allows fire managers and the public to access online maps of current fire locations and fire perimeters. Currently, for 2013, GeoMAC is maintaining up-to-date perimeter information for 620 wildfires across the United States.

Landsat is a joint effort of both USGS and NASA. Landsat images are unique in that they provide complete global coverage, they are available for free, and they span more than 41 years of continuous earth observation.

Learn more

USGS Newsroom

More information

Parameter	Value	Description
Magnitude	mb	The magnitude for the event.
Longitude	° East	Decimal degrees longitude. Negative values for western longitudes.
Latitude	° North	Decimal degrees latitude. Negative values for southern latitudes.
Depth	km	Depth of the event in kilometers.
Place		Textual description of named geographic region near to the event. This may be a city name, or a Flinn-Engdahl Region name.
Time	1970-01-01 00:00:00	Time when the event occurred. UTC/GMT
Updated	1970-01-01 00:00:00	Time when the event was most recently updated. UTC/GMT
Timezone offset		Timezone offset from UTC in minutes at the event epicenter.
Felt		The total number of felt reports
CDI		The maximum reported intensity for the event.
MMI		The maximum estimated instrumental intensity for the event.
Alert Level		The alert level from the PAGER earthquake impact scale. Green, Yellow, Orange or Red.
Review Status		Indicates whether the event has been reviewed by a human.
Tsunami		This flag is set to "1" for large events in oceanic regions and "0" otherwise. The existence or value of this flag does not indicate if a tsunami actually did or will exist.
SIG		A number describing how significant the event is. Larger numbers indicate a more significant event.
Network		The ID of a data contributor. Identifies the network considered to be the preferred source of information for this event.
Sources		A comma-separated list of network contributors.
Number of Stations Used		The total number of Number of seismic stations which reported P- and S-arrival times for this earthquake.
Horizontal Distance		Horizontal distance from the epicenter to the nearest station (in degrees).
Root Mean Square	sec	The root-mean-square (RMS) travel time residual, in sec, using all weights.
Azimuthal Gap		The largest azimuthal gap between azimuthally adjacent stations (in degrees).
Magnitude Type		The method or algorithm used to calculate the preferred magnitude for the event.
Event Type		Type of seismic event.
Event ID		Id of event.
Event Code		An identifying code assigned by, and unique from, the corresponding source for the event.
Event IDS		A comma-separated list of event ids that are associated to an event.

Parameter

Value

Description

Magnitude

The magnitude for the event.

Longitude

° East

Decimal degrees longitude. Negative values for western longitudes.

Latitude

° North

Decimal degrees latitude. Negative values for southern latitudes.

Depth

Depth of the event in kilometers.

Place

Textual description of named geographic region near to the event. This may be a city name, or a Flinn-Engdahl Region name.

Time

1970-01-01 00:00:00

Time when the event occurred. UTC/GMT

Updated

1970-01-01 00:00:00

Time when the event was most recently updated. UTC/GMT

Timezone offset

Timezone offset from UTC in minutes at the event epicenter.

Felt

The total number of felt reports

CDI

The maximum reported intensity for the event.

MMI

The maximum estimated instrumental intensity for the event.

Alert Level

The alert level from the PAGER earthquake impact scale. Green, Yellow, Orange or Red.

Review Status

Indicates whether the event has been reviewed by a human.

Tsunami

This flag is set to "1" for large events in oceanic regions and "0" otherwise. The existence or value of this flag does not indicate if a tsunami actually did or will exist.

SIG

A number describing how significant the event is. Larger numbers indicate a more significant event.

Network

The ID of a data contributor. Identifies the network considered to be the preferred source of information for this event.

Sources

A comma-separated list of network contributors.

Number of Stations Used

The total number of Number of seismic stations which reported P- and S-arrival times for this earthquake.

Horizontal Distance

Horizontal distance from the epicenter to the nearest station (in degrees).

Root Mean Square

sec

The root-mean-square (RMS) travel time residual, in sec, using all weights.

Azimuthal Gap

The largest azimuthal gap between azimuthally adjacent stations (in degrees).

Magnitude Type

The method or algorithm used to calculate the preferred magnitude for the event.

Event Type

Type of seismic event.

Event ID

Id of event.

Event Code

An identifying code assigned by, and unique from, the corresponding source for the event.

Event IDS

A comma-separated list of event ids that are associated to an event.

Earthquakes today

Current and latest world earthquakes breaking news, activity and articles today

Landsat 8 Satellite Sees Rim Fire from Space

Image Feature

More information

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

Follow us!

Tsunami videos

Categories

Information