figure of speech taken by a NASA satellite this week reveal the disturbing extent of a tight - travel wildfire in southern New Jersey .
Taken during the fire ’s second Clarence Day , the image conquer plumes of smoke and sear terrain from the fervor that ’s burn up 15,300 acres to date .
New Jersey ’s Pine Barrens are no stranger to fervency — sales pitch pines actually take occasional burns to thrive . But when drouth meet dense development , a raw bicycle can ferment perilously destructive . This calendar week , when a wildfire ignited in a wildlife direction domain near Waretown , New Jersey , and quick maturate into one of the state’slargest firesin decades .
The fires from a NASA Landsat.Image: NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
NASA ’s Landsat 9 captured the blazing — dubbed the Jones Road Fire — on April 23 using its OLI-2 ( Operational Land Imager-2 ) . In natural - colour sight ( below , at left ) , thick smoke billows from the fires S , with the coastline visible to the east . But more insights are gleaned from the satellite ’s false - color imagery — a combo of shortwave infrared , nigh - infrared , and visible illumination that let scientists distinguish between scorched landed estate ( brown ) , vegetation ( green ) , and human infrastructure . The assumed - vividness trope ( below , at mightily ) , reveal just how much of New Jersey has burn underneath the thick locoweed .
The flame forced aggregate evacuations in Ocean and Lacey townships , and briefly shut out down the Garden State Parkway , both sandwich between the fervidness and the water supply . Smoke also drifted toward New York City , showcasing how a localize problem can swiftly become a regional issue . As of 10 a.m. Eastern Time today , the fire is 60 % contained .
The fire ’s violence did n’t come out of nowhere . Earlier this month , NASA ’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment ( GRACE ) and GRACE - FO satellite had already flagged “ anomalously ironic ” stipulation in the sphere , harmonize to an Earth Observatoryrelease . The U.S. Drought Monitor echoed that admonition , classifying the area ’s condition as “ grievous ” just before the fire erupted .
This brilliance is a sharp reminder that the Pine Barrens ’ ecology is delicate ; even though the environment ask episodic wildfires , human ontogenesis stand for that the lifelike blazes can quickly become serious threats . Droughts can further exacerbate the issue . As wildfires growmore intenseandless predictable , watch them from space may be the only way to see the full picture .
NASANew Jerseysatellite imagerywildfires
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